Phoenix
by WitchGirl
Summary: The man who shattered Sara is dead, but his wife has a secret concerning Greg which Catherine scrambles to keep hidden. Little does anyone know, Greg has a secret he's trying to keep hidden too, even from himself. Sequel to Collateral Damage.
1. Secrets

Phoenix

**Summary:** The man who shattered Sara is dead, but his wife has a secret concerning Greg which Catherine scrambles to keep hidden. Sequel to Collateral Damage.

_**Author's Note:**_ Posting for this may be slightly slower (every other day). I'm writing two stories at once now (this one and "Salam"-- see profile for details) and so it's going a little slower. Also I've run into a rut-- but don't worry, I think I can dig myself out. I was hesitant in posting this today (I was going to post it Monday) but if I post every other day I think I can work out of my rut fast enough.

* * *

Greg kept his arms folded in the passenger seat as Catherine drove back to the lab. He had only spoken to her about the case, and very curtly at that. Beyond that, he refused to say a word to her. 

"So when is this silent treatment going to let up?" she finally asked him.

Greg swallowed. "Did you know Vera Volkova's execution date has been postponed?" He waited a moment and Catherine opened her mouth to reply when Greg interrupted her. "Don't answer that, Catherine, because I talked to the DA and he said that _you_ put in a special request to postpone it."

Catherine looked over and frowned at him. She couldn't help but breathe an inward sigh of relief. When Greg had initially brought up the woman who had kidnapped and tortured him three months back, she was worried that he had learned her secret. But apparently he was just upset that she wasn't dead yet.

"Is that all this is about, Greg?" she said with a laugh. "Listen, I have my reasons for that—"

"Do you?" Greg said, sounding irked. "Because I'd really like to hear them."

This time, Catherine sighed outwardly. "I didn't tell you because I knew you wouldn't like it, but I'm working with Vera on a case to catch another female serial killer."

Greg rolled his eyes as he tilted his head back in his seat. "That string of arsenic killings, are you _kidding_ me?"

Catherine was glad she was driving. It meant she didn't have to look Greg in the eye. "No. And… even if I wasn't being serious… Court can't set a date for another six months or so…"

"And why is that?" Greg muttered.

"Vera Volkova is pregnant." Catherine wasn't sure if she should have told him this or not, but he would have found out eventually.

"Oh, so since she's having a psychopath baby, they can't kill her?" Greg spat out bitterly. "Why not? Spawn of _that_ couple is damned to be just as evil as its parents."

Catherine was surprised by his violent reaction. "It's a _baby_, Greg, not a demon!"

"How can you say that?" Greg asked her, looking at her with disgust. "After what he _did_ to Sara? After what she did to me?" Greg closed his eyes and grit his teeth. "And now, he spawned a hell baby in that bitch."

"I don't think I have _ever_ seen you like this, Greg," Catherine said. "What's happened to you?"

Greg looked away from her and out the window as he rubbed his arms. He seemed to calm down as he shook his head. "I'm sorry, Catherine, I just hate them so much… And I've never hated anyone before in my life. I came close with Ryan Woodward, but the Volkovs… Just thinking about them makes my stomach lurch. The sooner she's executed, the sooner I can get her out of my mind. And I don't know how comfortable I am of a little Volkov running around, with their genes…"

Catherine chewed on her lower lip, silently wondering what Greg would say if he found out the truth about Vera Volkova's child. She decided to change the subject. "So do you think Sara and Grissom are still fighting?"

Greg sighed. "Same for her as it is for me. No solo cases, nowhere unusual, mostly B&Es, very few 419s, even less rapes. If I cared enough, I'd be mad at him too."

"But you don't care?" Catherine inquired.

Greg shrugged apathetically. "To be honest… I'm kind of relieved."

Catherine was confused. "Relieved? But you love working the field."

"Yeah, but jumping at every busty blonde I see isn't exactly confidence-boosting, you know what I mean?" Greg said with a forced chuckle.

Catherine gave him a sympathetic glance. "Aw, Greg. You don't jump when you see me."

"No, I wait until your back is turned until I start freaking out," Greg replied with a light smile. But Catherine silently wondered how much he was actually joking.

"Sara, on the other hand," Greg continued, "is as restless as ever. You'd think nothing ever happened, the way she goes on about things. She's laughing again, she's just as tenacious as ever, and she's arguing with Grissom again— just like old times."

"Yeah, I noticed that," Catherine said. "After Woodward, she was cold and withdrawn, and you were bouncing off the walls, and now… well, look whose become cold and withdrawn?"

As if to emphasize her point, Greg folded his arms and muttered at her sullenly. "Yeah, well… Amy took me off my meds."

Catherine pulled into the parking lot of the lab. "What?"

"My shrink, Amy," Greg clarified. "See, my ex-girlfriend Rachel had me on Imipramine, but Amy said it was a conflict of interest, that I should never have been on them in the first place, and that…" he trailed off.

Catherine parked the car and looked at Greg. She had heard the nervousness in his voice. "Greg? Are you alright?"

He turned to her, his demeanor changing and grinned at her. "I'm fantastic," he said, before opening the car door and stepping outside. Catherine left the car too and they both headed towards the lab. But just as they were about to go in, Sara came bursting out and ran straight into Greg.

"Whoa, easy there, kitten," Greg said laughing as he wrapped his arms around her. "Where's the fire?"

Sara was looking irritated. "Take me home, Greg," she said simply.

Catherine looked at her watch. "Sara, it's only two o'clock, you're still—"

"I've been put on temporary leave," Sara said, sounding snide.

"For what?!" Greg exclaimed.

Sara shrugged and rolled her eyes. "Insubordination," she said. "Apparently, Grissom thinks I spoke out of turn."

Catherine and Greg exchanged looks. "What did you say?" Catherine asked.

Sara just grumbled in reply and appealed to Greg. "Take me home. Please?"

Greg looked at Catherine pleadingly, silently asking for her approval and she nodded. "I can handle this," she assured him. "I mean it was just a robbery anyways."

Greg smiled gratefully and kissed Sara's forehead. "OK, I promise I'll be back soon."

"Take your time," Catherine assured him. "It's not like we'll send out a search party or anything."

"Can I quote you on that?" Greg asked seriously.

Catherine laughed. "I'll make sure Grissom doesn't flip his lid either," she promised them.

Greg nodded his appreciation and slung his arm over Sara's shoulders as he walked her to his car. Catherine watched their retreating backs and shook her head. So Sara had acted out again. But this time it was bad enough that Grissom actually felt he needed to suspend her. She made a mental note to ask him why after she dropped off the evidence in the lab.

"Hodges!" she called as she saw him working.

"Get in line," Hodges snapped before turning around. "Oh, Catherine!" he cried, just realizing who she was. "I'm sorry, I thought you were someone less important."

"You a little backed up in here?" Catherine asked with a raise of the eyebrow.

Hodges sighed as he looked over his shoulder at a rack of test tubes and evidence bags in a pile on the table. "Just a little."

"Well, take your time," Catherine said, setting down her evidence. "I don't want you stressing out."

She turned to leave when Hodges called after her. "Catherine, I wanted to ask you something, actually."

Catherine paused then turned to look at him curiously. "What's up?"

He was frowning at her, but Catherine wasn't sure if it was because he was in deep thought or if it was because he was accusing her of something. "Word on the wire is the girl who tortured Greg Sanders is pregnant," he said slowly. "Catherine, don't think I've forgotten about—"

"Don't jump to conclusions, Hodges," Catherine said quickly, giving him a dark warning glare. "As far as you or I know, that child could very well be legitimately that of Vera's late husband, Sasha."

Hoadges inhaled deeply and pursed his lips. It was in that moment that Catherine realized he had wanted to confront her about this for a long time and had already jumped to those conclusions and wasn't to be dissuaded. It bothered Catherine that he had jumped to the _right_ conclusions… assuming, that is that Vera Volkova had told her the truth. And considering Greg's semen had been found at the scene, it was highly likely that she was.

"What do you expect from me, Catherine?" Hodges asked at last. "Do you expect me just to keep my mouth shut?"

"You damn well better," Catherine threatened.

"You're burying evidence," Hodges pointed out.

"I'm doing no such thing," Catherine replied calmly. "It's in the file. There's just… no need to tell Greg. OK?"

"You should have told me she was pregnant," Hodges said, folding his arms. "Back when you told me to say my evidence was… contaminated?"

"Hodges…" Catherine began, not knowing exactly what to say to make him shut up.

Thank God for Grissom, who appeared just in time. "Catherine, I want you on the Sylvan case."

Catherine blinked at him. "Grissom, I'm already working on the robbery case with Greg—"

"I know, but I sent Sara home," Grissom interrupted. "She was supposed to work it, but she… wasn't cooperating."

"Was that the stolen car case?" Catherine inquired. "I thought that was pretty much solved. Didn't the teenage son admit to it?"

"I just need you to file some final paperwork for me," Grissom explained as he handed her a file. "Can you do that?"

"No wonder Sara blew up at you," Catherine said as she pulled Grissom away from the trace lab. Any excuse to get away from Hodges was a good excuse. "You've had her on paperwork duty for the past three months. What did she say to you anyway?"

Grissom closed his eyes and shook his head. "I don't want to talk about it," he told her.

"It must have been pretty bad for you to suspend her," Catherine pointed out.

"Let's just say that it was and leave it at that," Grissom compromised. "What were you and Hodges talking about?"

"Let's just say we both have topics we'd rather not discuss and leave it at that?" Catherine mimicked him.

He gave her a quirky smile. "Deal," he agreed, and changed the subject. "Is Greg speaking to you yet?"

Catherine nodded. "He was mad because he heard I postponed Vera Volkova's execution."

"Ecklie tells me she's pregnant," Grissom said dismally. "She can't be executed until the baby is born. Even then, she has to stay in prison for at least a whole year before a date can be considered."

"Yeah…" Catherine muttered. "They had a date set… I think it was in December of next year. I asked them to put it off for a few more… years."

"Catherine!" Grissom exclaimed. "After what she did to Greg? What would possess you to—"

"What did Sara say to you in the hall?" Catherine interrupted.

Grissom glared at her. "One of these days, you're going to answer my question."

Catherine gave him a look that said _touché_. "And one day, Grissom, you'll have to answer mine."

* * *

Sara fumbled with her keys while Greg leaned against the wall and watched her. Finally she opened her door and went into her apartment. Greg made a move to follow, but she closed the door just enough so he could only see her face. Greg looked almost insulted. 

"This is as far as you go," Sara said. "I need a little me time, and you and Catherine need to finish that case."

"What happened with you and Grissom back at the lab?" he asked, knowing this was his last opportunity.

"Goodbye, Greg," Sara said with a grin. "Thanks for the ride."

"Sara, don't you close that door on—" But before he could even get the last word out, it had already happened. He cursed under his breath and banged his fists on the door. "Sara!" He screamed at the door. "Let me in!" But there was no reply. Greg banged his head against the door and sighed in frustration.

She was doing it again. The same thing she had done to Grissom. She was pushing him away. She was afraid of him. And the thought of Sara being afraid of him frightened Greg, too. He was trying not to make the same mistake Grissom had made. He was trying to give her space. He was trying so hard not to suffocate her. There were time when he wanted to lock her away in a cage and keep her from all the ugly things in the world, but he knew that would be a little extreme. Maybe a glass box would be more appropriate…

He knew if he pushed too hard, he'd push her far away from him, but he worried that if he didn't push at all she'd slip through the cracks of her sanity and completely shut herself off from the world. She was pretty close to it now. It seemed to Greg that the only person she opened up to was her court-ordered psychiatrist, and that was assuming she _was_ opening up to her psychiatrist. Dr. Amy Waterstone played doctor to both of them, but due to doctor-patient confidentialilty, she wasn't allowed to discuss one with the other, which often infuriated Greg. Although he did have to give Amy props for trying to point him in the right direction. She had, after all, reminded Greg about Sara's birthday, and told him to surprise her with a trip to the Bamboo Garden, the new Japanese vegetarian restaurant. She had been thrilled, and Greg had been convinced that he'd just single-handedly saved their relationship. And then he'd reminded himself that he had needed Sara's psychiatrist to tell him what her favorite restaurant was, and he was suddenly melancholy all over again.

Greg knocked at Sara's door again, determined to get her to open up. But there was no reply. He leaned his ear against the door and heard the faint sound of water running. She might be in the shower. Volkov's violation hadn't diminished her addiction to compulsively washing and grooming herself. She used to take about five showers a day but after three months working with Amy, she was now down to only three.

Regardless of this new information, Greg continued to knock at her door. "Sara!" he called. "Sara, open up, I think we need to talk."

He sighed, noting the futility of screaming at his girlfriend while she was behind a closed door (possibly two, including the bathroom) and in the shower. But Greg wasn't one to give up easily. He resolved to wait until the water stopped running and then start knocking and screaming again. He leaned his back against the door and slid down to the floor, one leg folded up against his chest, the other extended, ready to trip unsuspecting passersby. Vaguely he had remembered promising Catherine that he would return to the lab shortly, but he didn't think it would matter too much.

An image of Grissom and Catherine running around frantically like chickens with their heads cut off entered Greg's imagination. They even flapped their arms like chickens. "Oh no!" the Grissom chicken was squawking. "Greg isn't here! Whatever are we to do without him?"

"I don't know," the Catherine chicken answered him. "Maybe he's been killed or kidnapped or engaged to an Elvis impersonator!" The Grissom chicken stopped squawking to give the Catherine chicken a look, who shrugged. "Hey, it's Vegas, it can happen."

And then they continued to run around again.

This little daydream entertained Greg for about two minutes until he got bored of it. He then wondered what Nick would look like as a turkey. This new thought led to picturing his other colleagues as birds and fascinated him for a full three and a half minutes until he finally lost interest in fowl all together. He did have to admit that Warrick made one pretty mean looking owl. He banged the back of his head against the door, wondering when Sara's shower would be done.

Eventually, and he hadn't realized it, but he had somehow fallen asleep. The only way he had even realized he was sleeping was because he was suddenly jarred awake. His wakeup call was something furry rubbing up against his arm, which he reflexively snatched and tried to flail across the hall.

He regretted this action immediately as there was a high pitched wail followed by hissing and spitting as something attacked his newly-healed left hand. He let out a growl of annoyance as he kicked the cat off of his hand and tried not to cry out as its claws ripped open the scars. He sent the pesky feline on its way down the hall, but not before it glared at him in a threatening _I'll be back_ cat sort of way.

Greg looked at his hand and was annoyed to see that it was bleeding. The cat had scratched across his palm, opening four different scars at twelve different places. Like a dog licking its wounds, Greg took his tongue to his hand, lapping up the blood.

The taste of it brought an immediate flashback to Vera Volkova's house. He was tied to the chair as she kissed him, her rough tongue tasting of his own blood.

He shivered as he brought himself back to the present and stared down at his hand. The brown scars marked an outline of a skeleton in his hand. Greg recalled at the time he had equated the image to that of the veins in a leaf, but now it looked more violent than it had at the time. After all, he'd been under the influence of PCP, everything seemed interesting to him, even his own pain.

Greg tried to push these memories away but failed miserably. Instead he dug in his pocket for a quicker fix and pulled out an orange bottle. He poured small white pill onto his hand and popped it in his mouth, swallowing it dry. He looked at his watch and immediately was on his feet.

"Shit!" he exclaimed. He had fallen asleep for an hour and a half. He quickly fished out his cell phone and noted three missed calls from Catherine. "Fuck a duck…" Greg muttered, before opening his phone and immediately calling her back.

"_Greg_?!"

She was anxious and scared and it fell on Greg to quell her fears. "Relax, Catherine, I fell asleep."

"You fell _asleep_?!"

"Uh… yeah…" Greg replied, looking warily at the door. "Look, you said you wouldn't send out a search party—"

"I didn't say I wouldn't _call_," Catherine snapped. "Jesus, Greg, you've been gone for over two hours, how long does it take to drop Sara off? You weren't answering your phone, hell, I was about to have Archie trace you!"

Greg rolled his eyes. "Listen, Cath, I'm not coming in tonight," he said. "There are some personal things I need to take care of. Cool?"

"No, Greg, _not_ cool—"

"Catherine, you _promised_ you wouldn't freak out," Greg muttered, exasperated. "I don't need you freaking out about me because you haven't _heard_ from me in two hours."

She was quiet for a moment, but when she spoke again she had calmed down significantly. "It's just that last time, Greg, you broke for lunch and no one even realized you were _gone_ until your kidnapper told us that she _had_ you…"

"And the time before that we were snatched from a scene in a remote location, so now neither Sara nor I can go anywhere remote at all. I get it, Catherine. You guys don't want it to happen again, but why is it all about us? It could happen to _any_ of us."

"I know that, Greg," Catherine said, her voice sounding incredibly small. This caught Greg off guard. He was used to a confident Catherine, and now she sounded… timid. "And that's what scares me the most."

"So what are you going to do, Catherine?" Greg asked her, seriously. "Let crimes go uninvestigated because you're too scared to send any of your friends out there? You got into this job knowing there was some risk involved. You knew all of this."

"I knew there would be risk for me," Catherine acknowledged. "I didn't realize how unwilling I was to… risk my friends."

Greg smiled, touched by her sincerity. "Well we know the risk too," he told her. "We've all been through something, Catherine. And shit happens. And enough of it has already happened to Sara and me. If anything, I'd be worried about those of us who _haven't_ been kidnapped or hurt at a crime scene. I'd be worried about Warrick. Or, hell, _Grissom_."

"If this is supposed to make me feel better, it doesn't," Catherine deadpanned.

Greg laughed. "OK, fine," he admitted. "My point is, relax a little. You and Grissom both. You may find that we'll surprise you."

"It's surprises that we're afraid of, Greg," Catherine pointed out. "But you're right. We both need to calm down. I'll try and talk to him about it. Maybe you and Sara could do a few more 419s… A big case every so often."

"Solo cases?" Greg pressed.

"That's pushing it, Greggo," Catherine said sharply. She relaxed. "But… we'll see."

Greg sighed. "Thanks Cath. See you tomorrow?"

"Sure thing," Catherine agreed and Greg hung up.

He turned to the door again and knocked. "Sara?" he called. He leaned his ear against it, hoping to hear something from her. But all he heard was running water. Sara took long showers, but none of them ever lasted _this_ long.

Suddenly worried, Greg banged on the door again, this time much louder and his voice carrying much more urgently. "Sara?! Sara, open up! Please?"

When he received no reply, he decided to take drastic action. He readied his shoulder to bang against the door. He looked down and realized he was about to ram the door with his left shoulder and decided that wasn't a good idea, considering three months ago that's where Vera had stabbed him and nine months ago, Woodward had shot him. So he changed positions and aimed with his right shoulder. He rammed the door once, twice, three times, but it wouldn't budge. Greg knew he wasn't as strong as say Nick was, but he could break down a door as good as anyone. So he kept trying. Finally, on the fifth hit, the door gave way and swung back on his hinges. Greg looked around briefly before stepping inside…


	2. Scars

_**Author's Note:**_ I feel I'm being unfair to this story in favor of "Salam" (which is getting most of my attention at the moment). And everytime I try to wrap this thing up, it still feels unfinished. I'm looking at a maximum of eight chapters. Right now I have about six. I'll try to wrap this up fast, I have a good idea of an ending in mind. Anyways, enjoy this story.

* * *

The apartment was filled with steam. Greg coughed and went down the hall, finding the source of it. He had been in Sara's apartment plenty of times by now and knew the way even though he couldn't see far in front of him. All the while his mind was racing fast ahead of him, a part of him already at the end of the hallway and in the bathroom with Sara, or something that _resembled_ Sara in his mind, but in actuality couldn't be her. Blood, tears, and razor blades entered Greg's vivid imaginings, his mind reeling back to his memories of Woodward and that hideous tape Sasha Volkov had made. He hoped against all hope that the scenarios in his head were far from reality. And he had just stood outside her door while she was _doing_ all this to herself? He already felt the guilt twisting heavily in the pit of his stomach for a sin he wasn't even sure had been committed. 

As he neared the bathroom, he forced himself to calm down. Maybe it wasn't as bad as he thought. Maybe she was still alive, maybe he could save her…

He finally reached the bathroom, which had an open door. The sound of crying both reassured and frightened Greg at the same time. "Sara?" he called into the forest of mist. She continued to sob so Greg continued into the bathroom, waving at the thick steam as he approached the closed shower curtain. His fingers rested on it momentarily, thinking it best to call her name again lest he frighten her out of her wits. "Sara?" When he received no reply, he slowly opened the shower curtain.

She was sitting there in the corner of her shower completely naked, her knees drawn up to her chest as she cried and the water poured over her. Greg was so struck by this he entered the shower without even thinking to turn off the water and kneeled down next to her. "Sara?"

She didn't even look up at him as she continued to wail into her knees. Greg stared at her in shock for a moment before it even occurred to him to reach up and turn off the unforgiving torrent of water that was now soaking them both. "Sara!" he said again, hoping now that the water wasn't drumming in her ears she would reply. There was still no response from her for a while, so Greg simply waited until she was ready to acknowledge him. Finally, when she had composed herself a little she looked up at him, and Greg was sure that not all of the droplets collected on her red face were from the shower.

"I read them, Greg," Sara whispered at last. "Those hideous words he branded me with… I read them."

Greg's heart melted to hear this news. "Come here, angel," he said as he enveloped her in his arms. She instantly threw her arms around his neck and he held her quivering cold body close to him, trying to make it warm again. He couldn't believe that she'd gone three months without looking at the scars on her thigh until now. "What made you read it?" he whispered into her ear. She was shaking violently in his arms and her skin was icy to the touch. Greg wondered how long she had sat in the shower until the hot water abandoned had her.

"I— I don't know…" she muttered. "I w-was just w-washing and th-then I r-realized th-there it was! Right on m-my leg and I n-never looked at it b-b-before."

Greg wasn't sure if she was stuttering because she'd been crying, or because she was so cold. He softly rubbed her back and tried to sooth her. "It's OK, angel, I'm here."

He held her there in his arms, stroking her hair and whispering sweet and calming words in her ear. He hadn't seen her cry in three months, not since they'd both woken up at the hospital together. She hadn't even _mentioned _the Volkovs to him since the event. Sara much preferred to pretend the event had never taken place at all. It had made her cold and aggressive, but she was also passionate and laughing again so Greg hadn't pressed the matter.

But now, he saw what all that bottling away had done to her soul until she had finally broken down in her own shower.

After what seemed like minutes, but could just have easily been hours, Sara finally stopped crying, but didn't pull away from Greg's embrace. Instead, she simply whispered in his ear. "Wow. This is awkward."

Greg couldn't help but laugh. "Relax," he said. "It's not like I've never seen you naked before."

She pulled away from him and smiled up at him with sad eyes. "Maybe that's true," she said. "But I'd still feel better if we were both similarly dressed."

"I could get naked if that would help," Greg offered with a playful smirk.

Sara smiled bashfully and looked away, her arms withdrawing from Greg's neck as they wrapped around herself in a vain attempt at modesty. Taking this as his cue, Greg stood up and reached for a towel on the rack handing it to her. She smiled gratefully up at him as she wrapped herself in it and unsteadily rose to her feet. Greg offered her his hand, which she took and he helped her out of the shower. He snagged a towel himself, and wrapped it around his shoulders as he led Sara into the hall.

"Wait in the living room," Sara told him. "I'm going to get dressed, and then I'll make us some tea."

He nodded. "I'd like that."

She looked at his wet clothes with an amused smile. "And… I'll bring some of your spare clothes out so you can change."

Greg hadn't want to mention the fact that he was wet, but was very glad she acknowledged it. "Thanks," he said and she headed for her room.

As Greg made his way to the living room, he felt a wave of utter relief wash over him. When he had first broken into her apartment, he had feared the worst. It was true, seeing her broken in her bathtub hadn't exactly been a beautiful sight, but it was much better than the alternative his mind had formulated. But Sara would never commit _suicide_, he told himself as he came to the living room. It just wasn't _in_ her, that sort of thing. Greg doubted she'd ever even _considered _it.

Not like he had.

Greg shook his head to clear it and made for the couch before stopping in his tracks and narrowing his eyes. There it was, that brown and gray monster he had met in the hallway.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he asked the tabby, who just stared at him smugly, _I told you so_ scrawled across its whiskered face. "I hate you so much," Greg muttered, shaking his head. He looked over at the door, which was still open. He didn't need to use his CSI skills to guess how the cat had gotten in. Rolling his eyes, he prepared for battle as he approached the cat. "OK, you mangy feline," he said. "This living room isn't big enough for the both of us."

The cat simply meowed in reply and stretched out on the couch lazily, mocking him.

"Oh, you think that's funny, do you?" Greg said. "I'll show you funny."

He launched himself at the couch and the cat jumped up, landed on his head and scrambled down his back before running to the door, where it slowed and sat in the doorway, its tail curled calmly around it as it watched Greg fall over the couch and hit his head. As Greg looked at the terrible tabby, the cat smirked at him in victory before flicking its tail at him and trotting out into the hall.

"Gr…" Greg muttered as he got to his feet. He rubbed his head on his way to the door where he closed it. He noted that it didn't stay closed. He reckoned that was his fault and decided he should at least offer to pay for a replacement door.

"Greg?"

He spun around at the sound of her voice to see her standing in the hallway wearing a white tank top and sweat pants. She held some of his folded clothes in her arms. He grinned at her. "Hey, angel. Feeling better?"

She nodded with an appreciative smile. "Much," she said.

He approached her, but hesitated before touching her until he received the go-ahead from her. He took the clothes from her hand and set them down on the couch. He kissed her lightly before wrapping his arms around her waist. "You look gorgeous."

"What was going on in here?" Sara asked. "I heard… meowing?"

"Aw, don't worry about that," Greg said, pulling away from her. "I remember you promised me tea?"

She nodded. "I did," she said, moving past him into the kitchen. Greg stretched and turned towards the spare clothes. He stripped off his soaked t-shirt and tossed on the clean black one with Led Zeppelin scrawled across it. He stepped out of his stiff jeans and pulled on the fresh pair, shaking out his hair. He then headed back to the couch where he lounged until Sara returned with a tray and set the tea down on the coffee table. Greg made room for her on the couch, but she instead took a seat in an arm chair and looked at him as she sipped her tea. Greg felt as if she was studying him like he was some sort of animal. Her behavior made little sense to him these days.

"What did it say?" Greg asked slowly, unable to contain his curiosity.

She finally tore her eyes away from him and stared down into her tea. "It's not what it said that bothered me," she replied. "It just brought back all the things I thought I'd gotten over."

"You've been so stoic for the past three months," Greg said, shaking his head. "You can't have been over it by now." All of a sudden, he found himself getting emotional, his utter shock at her impassivity finally shining through. "I mean, my _God_, Sara, just how do you do it? Please, tell me, because there's no _way_ I could ever be like you."

Sara nearly choked on her tea. "Be like _me_?" she spluttered. "Greg, you don't want to be like me, all cold and detached all the time!"

"How do you do it?" Greg repeated. "Because I would love to forget, I really would, but I just can't, even…" But he wasn't strong enough to admit to that yet. "Even when I talk to Amy, I just can't seem to work through it."

Sara shrugged, still looking at her tea. "Sometimes," she said, "it can be as simple as refusing to be a victim."

Greg didn't understand. "What do you mean?"

Sara sipped her tea and looked up at Greg. "I refused to think of myself as… a victim," she said simply. "What happened, it was unfortunate, it was an accident, and… there was nothing I could have done to prevent it. But it happened, and I can't change that. And he's dead anyways, so I don't have to worry about him… and Vera is in jail…" She trailed off and then looked up at Greg with a shrug of her shoulders. "Easy as that."

Greg leaned forward and put his forearms on his knees as he examined the broken woman before him, trying to figure her out. He spoke softly, so as not to come off as accusing. "Sara, you were crying in the shower for almost two hours. I don't mean to sound like I'm telling you what to do… but that doesn't sound like dealing with it to me."

Sara set down her tea and nodded, calmly. "I thought that since he was dead, that I killed him, I had killed all the things that he stood for, all the pain that he caused me. But he haunts me like a ghostly fire. And those words he carved into my thigh are like the chains which bind his restless spirit to me…"

Greg wanted to know what those words said, but knew Sara wasn't going to reiterate. "It's funny, isn't it?" he said instead. "You threatened to haunt him, instead he haunts you…"

Sara stiffened at these words and her eyes darted over to him, her demeanor suddenly cold and sharp. "What did you say?"

Greg looked at her, wondering what he'd done wrong. Hadn't Sara said that to him once? All of a sudden, it hit him. Sara hadn't told him about that conversation. He had seen it on the tape. Sara's rape tape. "I, uh… isn't that what you told me you said to him? You vowed to haunt his ass?"

She wouldn't buy it. "You saw the tape, didn't you?" she whispered, her voice flat and dead.

Greg looked away from her. He didn't know what to say. He couldn't lie to her. But he couldn't admit that he had seen her at her weakest point. Somehow, he felt she would never forgive him for this.

"You did, didn't you?" Sara urged. "How else would you have known what I'd said."

"I've never been more enraged in my life," Greg whispered, tears beginning to sting at his eyes as he stared at the coffee table, "then when I saw what he did to you."

Sara stood up and collected her tea cup and saucer. "You haven't touched your tea," she noted tonelessly.

Greg shrugged noncommittally before reaching for his cup and lightly nursed the still steaming liquid. "For what it's worth," he said, looking up at her, "I still think you're the most incredible person I've ever met."

Sara looked over her shoulder and smiled at him as she went to the kitchen to wash out her cup, but Greg saw there was nothing in her eyes when she did so. "Do me a favor," she called from the kitchen. "Go to the TV and put on the Princess Bride for me, would you?"

Greg smirked, taking this request as a sign of forgiveness. "Sure thing, angel!" he replied as he jumped up and obliged. He grabbed the remote and hit play, knowing Sara would be out shortly, and kicked his feet up on the coffee table with his arm stretched out across the back of the couch.

When Sara returned, she decided to accompany Greg on the couch this time and sat quite close to him in front of the arm sprawled out on the back of the couch. She leaned her head on his chest, so Greg drew his arm around her shoulders, reassuringly rubbing her arm. He wanted her to feel safe with him more than anything else. He wondered what had changed in her after she had found out that he'd seen her at her most vulnerable. It was miniscule, but he had detected a slight change in the way she looked at him, the way she spoke, and even the way she acted. After her break down in the shower, she looked like she was beginning to open up to him again, but upon his revelation that he had seen her tape, she was stone-cold-Sara again.

When Princess Buttercup was riding through the woods, a ripe target for kidnapping, Sara began to softly kiss his neck. At first, Greg didn't react. He wasn't sure what she was doing. He let her lips tickle his neck and shoulder. The way she kissed gave him goose bumps, not to mention his neck was a very sensitive area for him. He closed his eyes and gently stroked her hair. He tilted his head back and smiled as she moved up his neck, nibbling briefly on his ear, before he turned to meet her lips with his. He entangled her in his embrace and she lay down backwards onto the couch, compelling him to follow her lead.

Soon enough, the movie was forgotten, and Greg found himself lifting her white tank top up until she caught his hands and looked at him with desperate eyes.

"Slower," she pleaded, and he cooperated, pulling her shirt back down, content to just be with her. But soon enough, it was her hands tugging at his shirt, which he helped her in getting off. He still didn't dare mess with her clothes, at least not until she unbuttoned his jeans and he kicked them off, but he remained in his boxers, which were slightly damp still from the shower. He contemplated helping her out of her shirt again, only something seemed to change in her that caught him off guard. She flipped him over so she was on top of him and her style went from timidly gentle to furiously passionate as she ravaged him, her tongue swirling in his mouth. She began to kiss his neck again, this time with much more force as her hands raked down his sides almost painfully.

This abrupt change in attitude made Greg suddenly very uncomfortable and he caught her hands in his. "Sara—"

"Let me _go_!" Sara growled, ripping her hands away. She looked down at him, breathing hard as he stared up at her in fear. Her anger seemed to dissolve into horror. "Oh my God, Greg…"

She began to cry and Greg immediately reached up to reassure her. She fell back on top of him and he wrapped his arms around her, whispering into her hair. "It's OK, angel, you're with me now."

And he held her there on the couch, wearing nothing but his boxers, until she had finally fallen asleep. Greg let her rest on his chest as he finished the movie alone, just content to have her close to him and finally sleeping peacefully. When the credits began to roll, he reached for the remote, trying not to move so as not to disturb Sara and turned off the TV. He turned to his girlfriend and kissed her gently on top of her head before letting sleep claim him as well.


	3. Damage Control

_**Author's Note:**_ I feel confident enough to start posting daily now. So expect the next chapter tomorrow.

* * *

True to her word, Catherine had Grissom send Greg out on a double homicide with Nick a few nights later. Feeling like he was walking on air, Greg strolled into the trace lab to drop off some evidence. 

"Fibers and an unidentified red substance," Greg said with a grin. "It'd be nice to get it done ASAP, Ecklie wants this case solved."

Hodges glanced up briefly at him from the microscope then looked back down again. "OK."

Greg was taken aback. "What, no snippy remark? No crack about how I sold out to become a CSI?"

Hodges shrugged, still looking in the microscope. "Eh, you know that already, you don't need me telling you."

Greg raised a skeptical eyebrow as he backed away toward the door. "You know…" he began, "Come to think of it, you haven't said anything Hodges-like to me in months."

Hodges looked up from the microscope and smirked at him. "'Hodges-like?' Wow, I'm so special I'm deserving of my own adjective. Thank you, Sanders."

Greg shrugged, satisfied with this small quip of Hodges and turned to leave. Right as he reached the doorway, Hodges spoke to him again. He tried to sound off-handed, but there was the note of something else in his voice.

"Have you been to the records room lately?"

Frowning, Greg turned to look at Hodges over his shoulder. "No, I've had no reason to…"

Hodges looked up and smiled at him. "Well, then you wouldn't mind doing me a favor, would you? I've been meaning to get this down there— It's some old evidence that's been sitting on my desk for the Walden case? You remember, he was that serial rapist Catherine and Warrick apprehended a week ago."

Greg slowly turned and took the file Hodges had slid across the desk. He looked from the file to Hodges. "Uh… Sure, I guess I could do that."

Hodges nodded, his eyebrows raised and his mouth puckered. He looked like he was expending effort to look casual. "Yeah, thanks, that'll save me the trip." Greg flipped through the file and Hodges added, "And while you're there, I mean… W is right after V…"

Greg stopped flipping through the file and looked up at Hodges, his true intentions finally shining through. Or at least part of his true intentions. "You want me to look at the Volkov file… Why?"

Hodges rolled his eyes and laughed, again in an effort to seem laid-back. But Hodges wasn't a very good actor. "I don't _want_ you to, it just occurred to me that you could. I mean, if I was the subject of a case file, I'd want to know what it said. It was just a silly little notion, just forget I said anything." And with that, he went back to work.

Greg watched him for a long time before leaving, trying to figure out Hodges' motives. Even as he walked towards the record room with the file in his hands, he had an itching feeling that Hodges was trying to tell him something indirectly. He tried to unravel the mystery all the way to the records room and he entered, walking down the aisles of boxes until he finally reached the W's and pulled out the Walden box, neatly slipping the file inside.

He glanced over at the V's, which temptingly taunted him. He reminded himself that he was still curious as to what Sara's wounds read, and so decided to start with Sasha Volkov's box and pulled it out. There were manila envelopes and folders, as well as miscellaneous evidence, including a video tape and Greg knew all too well what was on it. He pulled out the photographs of Sara's thigh and grit his teeth in revulsion as he laid them out on the table to read his hideous "poetry."

_But like a phoenix, my love is reborn in you  
Your fiery blood will eternally bring me to life again. _

No wonder Sara had flipped out. He was basically saying that she immortalized him. Every time she looked down, those scars would give his ghost new life, and he would rise again and again, and she would keep lighting the thought of him on fire until it burned to ash. He was a deformed firebird of folklore that refused to die and leave them alone. Greg wondered vaguely how long the Volkovs would haunt them and dimly answered his own question. As long as those scars remained on Sara's legs. He hoped they healed fast, for her sake.

He quickly put the pictures away and promised himself he wouldn't look into Vera Volkova's file. It just felt wrong somehow. He was sure it had to be against the rules. Could he get fired for looking at it? Still, when he put away Sasha's box, it was right next to Vera's. He chewed on his lip a moment more before making his decision and snatching the box.

He sifted through the files until he found the crime scene photos. He shuddered to see himself in such a state, swollen and cut up, bleeding on the floor… and he was… naked. His cheeks burned in shame. But then the thought occurred to him. Why was he naked? He didn't even remember being stripped… But even as he thought about it, he realized she _had_ stripped off his jeans. She had threatened to castrate him, and at the memory Greg was more terrified of the idea now than he had been at the time. As if to reassure himself, he looked down just to make sure his pride was still intact, so to speak. But where had his boxers gone? They were off too… what purpose had _that_ served, other than, of course, to completely humiliate him. But he recalled Vera hadn't been into humiliation, at least not as much as her husband had been into it. Every move she made had a purpose. She didn't do anything for no good reason…

Greg gathered the photos and put them away. Catherine had processed the scene, if he remembered correctly… She would have taken the photos, gathered the samples, documented all the evidence of… what?

And then it hit him. Trace evidence. Why else would _Hodges_ of all people be trying to tell him something about his case? The answer had to be in the trace evidence!

His fingers finally found the file with Hodges' results on the trace. He frowned at it a moment. It had been labeled classified and sealed with a sticker proclaiming the same thing. Greg narrowed his eyes at it a moment before he decided, to hell with the rules, and opened the file anyway, breaking the seal with a nearby pen. At first, he saw nothing unusual. Blood: type O neg— well, he knew that— DNA matching one Greg Sanders—well who else would it match, the Queen of England? It sure as hell wasn't Vera Volkova bleeding out on the living room floor— and… trace amounts of…

Greg stopped reading as he dropped the file, staring at it stunned.

She had climbed on top of him. Greg had been fascinated by the flashing colors, and the dull pain that radiated from his body like heat… The world was a carousel and he was riding a white horse… Or had the white horse been riding him… He couldn't remember what Vera had been doing… She had been moving up and down, her head thrown back in the thralls of…

The color drained from Greg's face. He snatched the file and looked at it again. _Trace amounts of semen. DNA match: Greg Sanders._

Greg swallowed and closed the file before tucking it under his arm and striding out of the records room without even putting the box away. He needed to find her. That was his priority. He needed to ask her why she hadn't _told_ him. He had to know.

He banged on the door to her office and she looked up at him, confused. "Greg?"

He marched in and angrily threw the file down on her desk. "Why the _fuck_ didn't you tell me?!" he demanded. "I was on _drugs_, I had no _idea_ what she was doing! I didn't know she fucking _raped_ me!"

Catherine knew it was time for damage control as she rose to her feet, trying desperately to calm him down. "Greg, I'm sorry, I didn't want to drag you through more muddy messes. I thought that if you didn't know—"

"I wouldn't get hurt?" Greg interrupted, angrily. "Catherine, how could you keep this from me? I have a right to know!"

"I—I _understand _why you're mad, Greg," Catherine said slowly. "But you have to understand my position. How are you feeling right now?"

"Pissed off," Greg snarled. "Betrayed. Violated."

"You see?" Catherine said quickly, coming out around her desk. "It's upset you, and you'd been through enough as it is, you didn't _need_ to know."

"I'm not feeling _betrayed_ by Vera Volkova, Catherine. You _violated_ the trust I had in you!"

Catherine leaned back on her desk and shook her head sadly at Greg. "No, I think that's just what you're telling yourself, Greg. Sure, you do feel like I betrayed you, and I guess I kind of did… a little… But it's much deeper than that too. You're hurting. Like… Like Sara is hurting."

Greg folded his arms defensively and stared at the floor as he pursed his lips. He didn't want to admit it, but she was right. He felt humiliated by Vera Volkova, but it was worse that Catherine had _known_ about it all along. She had known more about what Vera had done to him than _he_ even knew, and in away he felt more mortified at that thought. He told himself it would have been better if he had _known_, if Catherine had told him right away. But then he would probably still be ashamed at the thought that she knew of his humiliations too.

"I can't look at you right now, Catherine," he muttered, refusing to look up from the floor. "I feel like every time you see me, I'm exposed and… I just can't…"

Catherine swallowed, but her guilt rose back up in her throat like vomit that refused to go away. "I really am sorry, Greg."

"Who else knows? I mean… does Grissom…"

"No," Catherine said sharply. "Just me."

Greg nodded, still staring at the floor. "Just you."

"And…" Catherine added, just remembering. "And… Hodges. Hodges knows, but only because he was the one who processed the evidence and found it."

"Yeah…" Greg muttered. "I figured as much. He kind of tipped me off."

_I'll kill him_, Catherine thought to herself. But she had to be honest, she was glad it was Hodges and not Vera, who had for some strange reason seemed to have kept her word.

Greg turned to leave when a horrible thought suddenly struck him in the doorway and he stiffened at it, feeling suddenly nauseous. "Catherine…?"

"Yes, Greg?" She spoke softly and regretfully, like a mother who felt guilty for punishing a child and was trying to make amends.

"The baby… the one that's growing inside of her… the hell spawn." He heard Catherine take a sharp intake of breath. "Who… who's the father?"

Catherine had lied to him too much already. "She claims that… you are."

Greg closed his eyes shut tight and his back went rigid. "Is there any credibility to this claim?"

Catherine bit her lip. "Autopsy findings on Sasha Volkov conclude that he was sterile."

Greg said nothing. He simply slammed the door and walked briskly through the hallway, past the trace lab where he barely noticed Hodges look up at him as he passed. He was walking blindly through the lab until without realizing it he ran headlong into Nick.

"Whoa, take it easy there!" Nick said with a laugh as he grabbed Greg's shoulders to steady himself. He looked up and instantly saw that he was upset. "Greg? What's the matter, bro?"

Greg shrugged his shoulders out of Nick's grip. "It's nothing," he muttered before moving past him and trying to continue on his blind path down the hall.  
But Nick wouldn't let him. He snagged his arm and Greg reacted violently, snatching Nick's wrist and twisting it.

"Don't _touch_ me!" he growled.

Nick shook out his wrist, his brow wrinkled. But he wasn't giving up that easily and he glared right back at Greg. "Look, I don't know what your game is, Sanders, but something's definitely up and I'm not gonna let you walk on down that hallway until you talk to me about it, whether you want to break my wrist or not."

Greg simply scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Whatever," he said before turning his back on Nick and heading down the hallway.

The pain was sharp and fierce as it attacked him from the side. Luckily, he wasn't bruised there but it still hurt like a bitch and Greg spun around, doubling over in pain as he staggered into Nick who caught him.

"What the _hell_ was that for?" he demanded through his pain. Slowly he straightened up and glowered at him furiously.

Nick was now massaging his left wrist with his good hand. "Consider it payback for the wrist. Talk to me, Greggo."

"I got a shrink for that sort of thing now, Nick," Greg answered.

Nick grit his teeth. "Fine, you don't want to talk, I can't force you. But don't you forget we're working on that Silverman double homicide from Eastland Heights. You hear anything from Hodges about our evidence yet?"

The sound of Hodges' name got Greg fired up again. But whatever rationality was left in him knew that it wasn't Nick's fault. He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, swallowing his pride. It burned in his stomach like bad heartburn. He rubbed his eyes, trying to force himself to calm down, at least until he could get somewhere to take his pills. "Uh… no. I just gave them to him like fifteen minutes ago."

"Oh," Nick said, feeling a little foolish. "Right, that makes sense."

Greg had a feeling Nick had only asked him about the case to get him to talk to him about _something_. He felt only slightly bad for their violent encounter, but not enough to apologize. Still, he wanted to make Nick feel a little better, so he cooperated. "Yeah, but I can get on those shoe impressions we found around the perimeter. How's it coming tracking down their kids?"

Nick sighed looking at the file in hand. "Not good," he replied. "They had, like, twelve. I could only reach two thus far, but they're both in New York, so I doubt they had anything to do with this…"

"Hey Nick?" Greg asked suddenly. "In your life, how many one-night stands would you say you had?"

Nick's eyes rolled up to the ceiling as he thought. "Uh… a few. Generally when I was in college, and inebriated. And one last week with a girl named Alex from that sports bar, or at least I hope she was a girl…" At Greg's dropped jaw Nick grinned. "I'm kidding," he assured him. "Why do you ask?"

"I was just wondering how you'd react…" Greg began slowly. "If say one of them you didn't remember so well, and one that you weren't particularly fond of in the first place… somehow ended up… pregnant."

Nick cocked an eyebrow. "You didn't knock up some chick you met at a strip club, did you Greg?"

"No, no, no!" Greg said quickly, shaking his head. "I'm just taking a poll, you know, one of those 'what if' scenarios."

Nick folded his arms as he thought. "I dunno," he said honestly. "I mean, if she told me, I guess I'd try and help out for the kid's sake…"

"But what if you really _really_ didn't like her?" Greg pressed. "Like, the very thought of her just pissed you off and made you sick to your stomach."

"If that were the case, I'd wonder how we ended up in bed together in the first place," Nick said with a shrug. "I generally don't sleep with women who repulse me."

"Yeah…" Greg said, his mind elsewhere.

Nick put a concerned hand on Greg's shoulder. "You OK, man? You don't look good."

Greg flashed Nick one of his trademark grins. "I'm great," he lied through his teeth. "Just anxious to get back to Sara, you know. Ever since Grissom suspended her she's been cleaning the house like it's her new job. I swear, she won't let me in her apartment until I take off my shoes and if it's raining she won't let me in until I'm dry. Next thing you know she'll be requiring haz-mat suits of everyone. It's kinda eerie."

Nick chuckled as he patted Greg on the back. "Alright, well you get on those footprints and I'll keep calling the Silverman clan to alert them that their folks are dead and see if any of them already knew."

Greg nodded eagerly. "Sounds like a plan." And with that he took off down the hall and swerved round the corner. As soon as he was out of sight of Nick, he ducked into the bathroom and dug deep in his pocket.

He didn't find anything.

Greg began to freak out as he stuck his hand deeper into the pocket, searching for something, anything. But the bottle was gone. He cursed under his breath and leaned on the sink, looking at his gaunt face in the mirror. His mussed up hair did nothing to make him look healthier and his eyes were sunken and bloodshot. Nick had been right, he _didn't_ look good, not at all. He sighed and splashed his face with water, as though that would help, and combed his hand through his hair to maybe style it a bit better than the just-out-of-bed look that he'd been going for lately. Or more like going with. Often it was a literal look—he'd crawl out of bed with a cow lick or two and not bother putting in the gel or even brushing it out. He was half-surprised that his hands could still go through his hair and not get caught for long in tangles.

When he was done, he looked at the mirror again and shook his head. He still looked like a train wreck, which was the perfect reflection of how he felt. He really needed his pills.

But _no_, he thought, he _didn't_ need the pills. He shouldn't say he _needed_ the pills, that was a sure sign of addiction. When Amy forced him off the Imipramine, he had simply gotten Rachel to write him a prescription for Efexor, claiming the Imipramine wasn't enough anymore. The SNRI was renowned for being more potent than its sister drugs, but it wasn't addictive. No antidepressant was _really_ addictive. Or that's at least what Rachel had assured him, and she was a doctor, and she knew these things. He was a chemist, and he knew these things too.

So no. Of course he didn't _need_ his pills. They just would have been nice to have, in the moment, considering he'd just found out he'd fathered his rapist's child. More than that, that he'd even been _raped_ at all.

The thought left him flabbergasted. He knew men could be raped, but whenever the thought occurred to him he only though about penetration, by other men, or with a foreign object. But the law had been changed. Rape didn't just mean penetration anymore. Loosely stated, it was "having carnal knowledge without consent." "Carnal knowledge" was so ambiguous, these new terms were often debated in court. But he was pretty sure that what Vera Volkova had done to him—drugged him, physically stimulated him, and impregnated herself with his child— could definitely be construed as "carnal knowledge without consent."

Greg shivered at the thought and felt coke bugs crawling under his skin and suddenly empathized with Sara. He immediately wanted her there with him, so he could hold her close and smell her strawberry Sara Sidle scent, and feel her warmth close to him. He knew she would make him feel better just by being there.

Truth be told, he had no idea what he was going to do. He needed help, but he didn't know where to turn. He could tell Sara. But she had closed himself off from him lately. The first time he'd seen her cry, or even talk about the Volkovs at all, had been a few nights when she'd broken down in her shower. And she hasn't mentioned it since. All she'd do all day is vacuuming, or scrubbing the floor, or washing the windows. She didn't want anymore drama, and Greg wasn't inclined to give her anymore.

He could, of course, talk to Catherine. But he was too angry with her at the moment to try and ask her advice. Considering the actions she'd taken already, she'd probably tell him not to worry about the baby. He didn't know if he could do that. It shared half his genes, it was half of him. But it was also half of _her_. He wondered how politically correct it was, referring to a human life as an 'it.' This thought led him to question if he would forever consider the child to be an 'it' even after it was born…

Could he tell Nick? The man had always been like an older brother to him, always looking out for him, keeping him on his toes… He did tend to give good advice, too. He knew what he was talking about.

He could tell Amy, their psychiatrist. That sounded like a good idea. She was paid to deal with his pain. But would she tell Sara? All doctor-patient confidentiality considered, Amy had given Greg little hints to try and get Sara to open up to him again. He was sure she gave Sara equally indirect insights into Greg's head. But was it really so bad if Sara knew? What would she think of him? Would she be able to deal with it? Would she still love him?

Greg shook his head to clear it. It seemed there were a few people he could talk to after all, if he worked up the courage.

A name entered unbidden into his head. Grissom. Gil Grissom. As wise as Greg considered him to be, the two of them had been on thin ice for the past three months, now that Greg and Sara were dating. He knew Grissom tried to hide it, but Greg saw the broken look in his eyes whenever he saw Sara and Greg together, and this saddened Greg more than anything. When the whole debacle had started to unravel, he had told Sara that the last thing he'd wanted to do was hurt Grissom and in the end, that seemed to be exactly what happened. He had hurt him badly, and he'd gone straight to the jugular because not only had he had an affair with Grissom's girl, but he'd also stolen her away, right out from under him. That couldn't have been a confidence booster for the man, almost twenty years Greg's senior.

But then, another name floated on his thoughts and he tried desperately to chase it away. Vera Volkova. He had to see her, if only to make sure that her child really was his.

But first, he had a job to do.


	4. Sword of Damocles

_**Author's Note: **_I love the myth of the Sword of Damocles. And I think it's a very apt parable for this chapter for multiple reasons. I'm wrapping up Phoenix now... I hope it doesn't read rushed, because it feels that ways as I write it, but I'm anxious to work more on Salam and this story has drawn on for fricking ever. OK, enjoy. :o)

* * *

Grissom looked up at the knock on the door and saw Ecklie stepping into his office without even waiting for Grissom's go-ahead. 

"Can I help you?" he asked sarcastically, hoping he was passive-aggressive enough in letting Ecklie know he was unwelcome.

Ecklie closed the door as he fixed Grissom with a hard gaze. "I hear you suspended Sara Sidle."

"Is that a problem, Conrad?" Grissom asked with raised eyebrows. "I thought suspending people was a personal hobby of yours."

Ecklie looked at the ceiling, then back at Grissom. "I've been evaluating her performance over the past few months, as you know. I've spoken to her psychiatrist, Dr. Amy Waterstone too. I didn't exactly trust Catherine's preliminary report, and I'm sure you can understand why. Sara has been sketchy in her performance at best, Gil. She argues with you, not to mention I find out that the two of you have a romantic history…"

"What are you getting at, Ecklie?" Grissom interrupted, not exactly eager to talk about his and Sara's now obsolete love life.

Ecklie looked down, then back up at Grissom. "I think it's best if she takes an extended leave of absence."

"Are you trying to fire one of my best CSIs?" Grissom asked flatly.

"Except she's not one of your best CSIs anymore, Gil," Ecklie exclaimed. "Even _you _don't trust her."

"That's a lie," Grissom snarled defensively. "How do you know who I trust and who I don't?"

A smile tugged at the corner of Ecklie's mouth. He knew he had struck a nerve. "Well, I hadn't meant anything by it, Gil…" He opened the file in his hands and flipped through it. "All I meant was that you've been sending her on simpler cases, rookie stuff. You haven't trusted her with a serious case since her psych eval in August."

But Grissom was shaking his head. "You mistake my prudence for mistrust, Conrad," he explained calmly. "Sara Sidle went through an unimaginable trauma. I'm worried, and so is her psychiatrist, that if she handled any cases that resembled the Volkov case she would relapse back into a former state. See, Conrad, you aren't the only one whose been updated by Dr. Waterstone. She and I have been working closely together to ensure that Sara makes a full recovery and is back to her old self as fast as possible. And from what _I_ hear from the good doctor she's been making plenty of progress."

Ecklie looked to be in deep thought. "I'm under a lot of pressure here, Gil."

"Sword of Damocles dangling over you, is it?" Grissom said calmly as he leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. He gave Ecklie a smug smile. "Don't you worry, Conrad. Sooner or later, no matter what you do, that thread will snap."

"You and your obscure references, Gil, you think you're so much more well-informed about everything and you know what? I don't _give_ a shit about useless information!" Ecklie was livid. "I care about the wellbeing of the lab. I'm just worried about a lawsuit or something. She's unstable, and she has random outbursts, she argues with her superiors… The sheriff—"

"Don't talk to me about the sheriff, Ecklie," Grissom interrupted. "Or the mayor. Or anyone else, for that matter. You've had it in for Sara ever since you were in a position to control her. Don't tell me you're just finding out about our 'romantic history,' as you call it, because I could see it in your beady little eyes from the moment you got promoted that you could tell and you've been out to make me miserable ever since."

"Well everything is all about _you_, now, isn't it Grissom?" Ecklie snapped. It was obvious that the first-name-basis part of the conversation was long past. "You're always thinking about _you_ and _your_ team—"

"Well if I don't then no one _will_," Grissom snarled. "_You_ very obviously don't. I'm just looking out for me and my own, Ecklie."

"But you never think about _your _lab, do you, Grissom, and that's what _I_ have to think about every day."

"Before we continue on in this argument, I just need to know," Grissom said calmly. "Are you going to put _me_ on an 'extended leave of absence'?"

Ecklie glowered at him. "You sure are treading on thin ice here, Grissom."

"Sara stays," Grissom returned, hardly. "I've fought for very little with you, Conrad, and generally it's because I don't _like_ dealing with your administrative affairs, but when Sara comes back from her suspension she _stays_, and she will continue to work her old shift under _me_ because she works _well_ under me. Are we clear?"

Ecklie was chuckling. "From what I hear she doesn't work under you at all anymore."

Grissom kicked the chair back as he rose to his feet so fast he thought he was going to vault the desk and attack Ecklie right there. "Get the _hell_ out of my office, you sniveling son of a—"

"You're still my subordinate, Gil," Ecklie said glibly. "I've been lenient and understanding thus far, but I'd be careful what you call me if I were you."

Grissom forced himself to calm down as he slowly sat back in his chair. Ecklie turned to leave, but Grissom wasn't about to let the bastard have the last word. "He was a courtier."

"I beg your pardon?" Ecklie raised an arrogantly curious eyebrow at Grissom over his shoulder.

Grissom remained stoic. "Damocles. He was a courtier who wheedled the ruler of Syracuse to trade places with him for a day to know what it was like to be a tyrant. He enjoyed the position of power, having people wait on him hand and foot. He ate lavishly and relaxed and was doted upon. Until he looked up and realized there was a sword constantly hanging over his head held in place only by a single horse hair tied to the hilt."

Ecklie frowned, obviously annoyed. "I don't get it."

Grissom was smug again. "I didn't expect you to." Ecklie slammed the door, which made Grissom feel even better. He had finally won against Conrad Ecklie.

* * *

He sat down and just stared at her behind the glass for a really long time. A slow and sinister smile crept across her features as she took him in. At last, he reached for the receiver and picked it up, his face inscrutable as he continued to stare at her. 

"Greg Sanders," she cooed into the receiver. "Last I saw you, you were painted beautiful in red black and blue."

Greg didn't know what to say. All he could do was breathe angrily into the phone.

She chuckled softly. "Why are you here, _zaznoba_? I'm sure you have better places to be."

Greg pursed his lips and shook his head. "You're really twisted. Do you know that?"

She simply smirked in reply. "You came for a reason, didn't you?"

"I did," he said. "I heard you were pregnant."

To his surprise, the smirk fled from her face and she looked vacant, almost… sad. "Yes," she replied tonelessly. "It seems irony has at last blessed me with a child when my husband is dead and I'm scheduled to die as soon as it's out of my womb. In a way, this child is the only thing keeping me alive."

"That is a shame," Greg acknowledged with a shrug, sympathy miles away from his tone. "Really, it is. The kid comes into this already unforgiving world without a father, only to have its mother stolen away from it as soon as it's born. What's going to happen to it after you're born?"

Vera shrugged and looked at the ceiling. "I think it's going into foster care or some such thing like that. I have no relatives, or at least none that would want anything to do with me. My brother, Leon expressed interest in raising the child, but we haven't spoken in years ever since I…" She trailed off. She seemed to be remembering something and smiled fondly at it, shaking her head at the memory. "Oh dear. She was a sweet thing. The youngest by far that I've ever taken, but still…" She snapped back to the present and looked at Greg. She leaned forward on the table, getting very close to the glass. Although she couldn't touch him, Greg instinctively leaned away. "What is the _real_ reason for your visit, Greg? Surely it can't be to ask about my health, or the wellbeing of my unborn child?"

_Why won't she tell me it's mine?_ Greg asked himself silently as he fixed her with a steely gaze. _She has to know. Catherine said Sasha was infertile, so it _has_ to be mine. Doesn't she know that?_ "When's you're execution date set?"

Vera scoffed. "Don't underestimate me, Greg, you didn't come all the way down here to ask me that and I know it."

"What are you going to name the baby?" Greg blurted out.

Vera looked surprised. "Why so interested in the child of the woman who tortured you, Greg? Are you looking to adopt?"

"Maybe I'm looking into it," Greg replied noncommittally.

"There's something you're not telling me…" Vera said slowly.

_Yeah_, Greg thought bitterly to himself. _There's something you're not telling me too._ "Names?"

Vera looked down at her rounding belly and rubbed it maternally. "Oh, who knows, really. Perhaps Sasha, after his father." She grinned up at Greg. "I've been considering naming him Gregory. After my last and most handsome victim."

Greg narrowed his eyes and the disgusting insult hidden within a compliment. "And if it's a girl?"

Again, her lips curled. "A girl… Lydia, perhaps. Or Stasia. You know the name means resurrection. I think it's quite appropriate. She will be my resurrection. I will live on in her. That is, if she is indeed a she."

Greg rose to his feet. "I like Lydia," he said. "If it's a boy, try the name Aidan."

Vera made a face at him. "You march in here thinking that _you_ have a say in what I call _my_ child?"

Greg cast his gaze downwards as he tucked his right arm under his left elbow. He spoke coolly into the receiver. "I think you and I both know that you'll choose my names, when the baby comes. Besides. If you want him named after his father, you should definitely call him Aidan." He made to hang up the phone but Vera jumped to her feet, hoping to stop him.

"Why?" she asked curiously into the phone.

Greg watched her unblinkingly for a moment. "Because it's my middle name." And without waiting for her to respond, he hung up the receiver.

He strode away without looking back, but he heard her banging on the glass and screaming after him until she was suddenly silenced, probably by the guards who had pulled her away from the window. He nodded calmly at the guard at the door before heading out to Sara's to hopefully gain comfort from her presence.

* * *

He stayed in the car a long time, looking at the pills in his hand, trying to think about what he was doing. He clutched them tight in his hands as he looked at his bloodshot eyes in the rearview mirror. Had it really come to this? 

Everything in his life was falling to pieces. The Efexor had worked fine enough, did he really need to go this far? But Rachel had refused to write him another prescription. She said he'd used all the pills in too short of a time period. She'd been afraid that he was abusing them. But he wasn't. They just tended to calm him down. And wasn't she the one who insisted that it was _impossible_ to get addicted to antidepressants?

But these… these wouldn't calm him down, and he knew it. He also ran a higher risk of dependency if he used these. He'd seen what amphetamines could do to people. In college, his roommate had taken Ritalin once to help him pull an all-nighter. Or at least, he had assured Greg that it was only that once. Eventually, after Greg found the third empty bottle under his bed, he had to confront his roommate. Soon after that, Greg had joined his fraternity and his roommate had checked into rehab.

But this was different. He had gone off prescriptions; Rachel had refused to write him another one for any pharmaceutical drug used to treat anything, depression, PTSD, ADD or otherwise, and he knew Amy, Miss 'Natural Remedy' wouldn't write him a prescription unless he was in dire need of it. No, this was uncharted territory. And it wasn't exactly… legal. He could lose more than his job if anyone found out about this.

He knew this. He knew all of this. But he didn't know how to deal with all the knowledge that he had. Sara was still broken, his rapist was pregnant, and he couldn't get the images on that tape, or Woodward's eyes out of his mind. The old dead Texan's hard gaze still sharply in his mind's eye, Greg closed his eyes and popped a pill from the bottle, taking a swig of a bottle of water.

He looked back at his guilty eyes in the mirror, but they suddenly seemed just a little less tired. _It's only for a little while_, he assured himself. _Just until I sort things out and we can both be happy again._ He had to stay happy. He had to keep up the façade he held so dear. If anyone knew the frightening nightmares he still had in waking, what would they do? No, he'd just cause everyone more worry, especially Sara, and that was the last thing she needed. He resolved himself to be happy for her, to smile for her, to be the one to cheer her up.

He looked up at the apartment building he was parked outside of and stepped out of the car, ready to face the mess that was his life with renewed vigor.

* * *

He knocked on the door. He had asked for a key a few weeks ago, considering he was over there so often, but she had yet to supply it. He suspected she was still wary of giving her key to _anyone_, and he tried to respect that. 

When she opened the door, he was surprised to see she was wearing an apron. To his greater surprise, she gave him a quick peck on the cheek and ushered him in before returning to the kitchen. He pushed the door open and stepped inside. He heard Joni Mitchell playing quietly in the background.

"I'm glad you're home," she called over to him. "I was wondering where you were. I have your lunch ready, you can eat it before crashing if you want." She looked coyly at him over her shoulder. "Or we don't have to sleep right away…"

He smiled dimly at her, the way she looked in that cute little apron reminding him all over again of why he loved her so much. She was strong and resilient. But he wondered if he mistook her stubbornness for resilience. Sara Sidle was a master at suppressing unwanted thoughts, and she hadn't been even slightly depressed since the night she had fallen asleep during the Princess Bride. He knew she didn't want to deal with it, and he didn't press the matter, for now at least. Dealing with Sara was like taming a horse. You had to take things slow, and gain her trust, not her resentment.

Trust… It was a thing that Greg thought he and Sara already possessed for each other, or at least they had before the Volkovs. Before they were dating. He knew from her relationship with Grissom that she didn't deal well with romances after a traumatic event. What she needed from him was a friend, first and foremost, and a lover second.

With this in mind, he answered her previous innuendo. "I'll have to take a rain check on that, angel, I'm beat. What are you cooking anyway?" He didn't want to tell her that it smelled burned. She had worked so hard on it after all.

She beamed at him proudly as she waved her oven mitt clad hands at him. "Casserole!"

"What kind of casserole?" Greg inquired cautiously.

Sara knelt down in front of the oven and opened it up. She waved away the smoke that billowed out before reaching in and pulling out her prize and straightening up. She looked down at it and wrinkled her nose before looking up at Greg. "I don't know. Are there… different _kinds_ of casserole?"

Greg couldn't help but smile. "What's in it, Sara?"

She shrugged. "Celery… cheese… mashed potatoes… tofu… peas and carrots..."

"You just made a very deranged vegetarian Shepherd's Pie," Greg laughed, shaking his head.

"I don't know," Sara said with a shrug. "I just thought casserole is what you called it when you threw in a bunch of different foods and see what comes out."

"See, Sara, this is why _I_ do the cooking," Greg laughed.

"It was either this or take-out," Sara explained. "I've been cleaning all day."

Greg felt a headache coming on. "Again?"

Sara glanced up at him before looking back at her casserole and waving away the steam. "What do you mean 'again?' This place gets messier everyday, don't you see it?"

"I think it looks beautiful," Greg said, approaching Sara with a flirtatious grin. "Just like you."

She turned around and returned his smile. "Oh?"

A fire began to burn in the pits of Greg's stomach. He became aware of everything as all his senses were suddenly heightened. A smile began to spread across his features at this new rush of power which was disrupting his brainwaves, making his thoughts race at a mile a minute as his previous logic suddenly seemed utterly ridiculous. He was a man, and she was a woman, and they both had healthy libidos. He felt his heartbeat quicken as the blood surged through his veins. He had the notion that he had never before felt more alive.

The sight of Sara made Greg want to throw her against the wall and ravage her, making her feel the intense ferocity he was feeling at that moment, make her scream, make her soar, make her forget about life altogether and explode in a supernova of passion. He wanted to share this sudden feeling of rapture. He wanted it to pour out of her. He wanted to fall so deep into her that he'd have trouble ever untangling his soul from hers.

This in mind, he approached her slowly. "Mm…" he intoned as he put his hands on either side of her, pinning her against the counter.

"What's come over you?" she asked, leaning back slightly, but she was still smiling playfully. "I thought you were tired. Suddenly you want to sleep with me? What about lunch?"

"I'm not hungry," Greg growled. She filled him with an overwhelming sense of joy. Somewhere in the back of his brain, his headache warned him that it wasn't just Sara who was inducing this new sense of euphoria in him, but he pushed it aside as he ravished her with his eyes. "At least, not for food."

She giggled and kissed him softly, but he returned it hungrily, his hand entangling itself in her hair. She pulled away suddenly and gave him a nervous look. "Let's… not get too carried away here…" she said slowly.

For a moment, Greg wanted to kiss her again to test her timid theory, but it took all his willpower to hold back. What logic was left in him reminded him of her condition. She had been shattered by a man only three months ago. She needed gentility more than passion. He grit his teeth and begrudgingly cooperated, deciding it best not to point out her deviant behavior during the last time they had tried to have sex. Instead, he softly kissed he cheek and nibbled lightly on her earlobe. She moaned softly as her hands found their way up his shirt and she ran her fingers up his spine. Her palms pushed upward towards his shoulder blades, taking his shirt with them. He pulled back and cast her a playful look as he raised his arms, assisting her in her endeavor.

Soon enough, they had found their way into the bedroom and closed the door. It took all of Greg's strength to hold back, as much as he wanted to release his passions on her, and this time Sara didn't flip out on him. He directed his adrenaline into controlling this newfound power growing inside of him as opposed to unleashing it and devouring his lover. Controlling a beast like that was energy well-spent. Slowly, he was able to unbutton her blouse and it delicately fell off her shoulders and onto the floor where it was quickly forgotten. Soon enough, they were undressed and under the covers. They moved slowly at first, and Sara emitted little gasps of surprise as Greg suddenly and daringly tried things he'd never done before. She would warn him when things became too heated for her liking, and he would back off reluctantly, but it didn't happen often.

And as they made love, for the first time in weeks, and the adrenaline was pumping through his veins, Greg felt happier in that moment than he had in a very long time. Blinded by bliss, it didn't even occur to him that this was a warning sign of something worse to come, like a storm cloud looming over a distant horizon during the sunniest day of the year. He would worry about that later. Much later. Because now, with whatever help he had, he was content, more than content, he was happy, and he was with Sara, and she was happy, and that's all that had ever mattered to him. He was ready to bathe in the sunshine and appreciate it while it lasted. He didn't even want to prepare for the torrential rains to come.

In that moment, Greg Sanders found everything he had ever wanted and he didn't even care about the unscrupulous means he had used to find it.


	5. Leon Kuzmin

_**Author's Note:**_ Sorry I didn't get this up earlier today. My Internet wasn't working in the morning (I blame the dorms) and I was in Des Moines all day (which is not nearby) so... Anyways, it's technically still today, at least on my coast it is, so I'm going to post this now and get the other one up tomorrow afternoon. Cheers. Oh, a note on the drugs (waywardkitty): let me just apologize for the inaccuracies, I'm too lazy to correct them. Thanks, though. Also, on Greg's middle name (PisceanPal23): Sure, so I made it up-- Hojem could well be his middle name, even so, I have two middle names-- one was assigned to me because my folks liked it, and the other is my mother's maiden name. So it's possible for Greg to have two middle names too.

* * *

Things pretty much continued unaltered over the next month. As Vera's belly swelled, the only ones who knew her secret were Catherine, Greg, Hodges and of course Vera herself. 

Sara no longer awoke with nightmares. She slept sounder than Greg had ever seen her sleep, and it pleased him to see her resting so peacefully, even if sleep eluded him. She no longer leapt out of bed to take vigorous showers either, although she still took her daily three when she was awake.

Grissom had seemed to relax around Greg, and things between the two men seemed to have returned to almost normal as they worked together in the lab. But when Sara had returned after her three weeks leave, Grissom had tensed again. Greg hoped that he would be able to win back the entomologist's trust eventually.

Greg, for his part, had substituted the amphetamines to dealing with his problems, although he and Sara both saw Dr. Amy Waterstone on a weekly basis. The drugs had shown little side effects, at least in Greg's eyes. They threw off his sleeping patterns, but he adjusted and made excuses which people willingly accepted. Sometimes he felt overly stimulated and aggressive, but he tended to take it out on suspects or he would hit the gym. To his great pleasure, he felt that they gave him the confidence to push Sara just enough to make her push back, and their relationship was flourishing because of it.

It was because of these things that he ignored the jittery restlessness his muscles would feel on the way down, and the fluctuations in his appetite. He almost enjoyed the dreamless sleeps he would fall into for hours when his body finally decided to sleep. And he explained away his weight loss on his constant visits to the gym.

All in all, everything seemed to be slowly working itself out, at least in Greg's mind.

That is, until Leon Kuzmin walked into the crime lab.

It was December 3rd. Catherine was in her office calling the ski lodge to confirm her reservation. She had promised Lindsey that it would be a vacation they would never forget and she planned on following through on that. She had bailed on her daughter too many times before, and Lindsey had been looking forward to this for five months. Catherine wasn't about to let the girl down. Not this time.

He knocked on her door and she put a hand over the mouth piece of the receiver. "Reception is down the hall," she said to him.

But he shook his head as he entered the office. "I know, they told me to come here."

Catherine hung up the phone and eyed this man warily. He had a head of blonde hair and shocking blue eyes, as well as a five o'clock shadow. There were bags under his eyes and Catherine noticed he was a nail-biter by the shape his hands were in. "Who are you?" she asked.

"My name is Leon Kuzmin," he answered simply. "My sister told me that I should speak with you."

"Your sister…?" Catherine wasn't following.

Hesitantly, Leon nodded. "Yes," he said. "Vera. Vera Volkova."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees and Catherine's demeanor changed from confused to cautious. "I was told Vera's family was dead…"

Leon laughed grimly and nodded. "Yes, well, most of them are. There are days in which I wish I was too. I can only thank God my parents didn't live long enough to see what their daughter has become. But I can curse him too for letting her do the things she has done to me."

"I don't understand…" Catherine said slowly, fearing the worst for this man. "She didn't attack _you_ did she? She didn't…" Catherine didn't finish her sentence, but she had a feeling that incest wasn't a far leap for Vera or her late husband.

"She attacked my heart," Leon replied monotonously.

"You're going to have to elaborate," Catherine said. "Are you adding to her charges? I can call a detective—"

"No," Leon interrupted harshly. "I want to speak with you."

Catherine leaned back in her chair. "OK, then, what do you have to say?"

Leon stared down at his knees. "Do you have… children, Ms. Willows?"

Slowly, Catherine nodded. "Is this about—"

"I heard on the news," Leon interrupted tonelessly, "that you recovered several bodies at Vera and Sasha's house. I also heard that a few of them were still unidentified. I… I saw a photograph of one of the unidentified victims. A little girl with light brown hair… she painted her fingernails different colors…"

A lump rose in Catherine's throat. "Mr. Kuzmin, do you mean to tell me you recognize that little girl?"

Leon's eyes welled with tears. "She… She was my baby girl… My Anna…"

Catherine gasped. "Oh my God…"

"On the day she disappeared…" Leon continued, "my ex-wife and I received a… a video tape in the mail. My baby was crying. She was dressed up like a porcelain doll. She was clutching at a teddy bear, Ms. Willows. They had her stand in front of a concrete wall. There were… other dolls. Sitting on chairs in a row, also against the wall. They began at the far end and shot every porcelain face. Anna was wailing so loudly… They shot the bear clear out of her hands, Ms. Willows, before they shot my daughter in the head."

"When was this?" Catherine asked breathlessly.

"Two years ago," Leon replied dully. "Allison—my ex—she knew it was Vera, and deep inside me so did I. Vera used to give Anna a doll every year on her birthday. Just like the ones that were shot in the video. I couldn't admit it. But… there wasn't enough evidence. Neither Vera nor her husband appeared on the tape. And they never found the basement the film was shot in. My sister and her husband walked. But she told me after the trial. She bragged about it to my face. She said, 'Oh what a pretty corpse my little niece was. Oh what a perfect porcelain doll…'" By now, Leon was crying full force as he closed his eyes. "Allison couldn't take it. She blamed me… I blamed my sister… It ruined out marriage. Vera Volkova ruined my life, Ms. Willows. And now… thanks to you, she is finally in prison."

"Not just me," Catherine said softly. "Everyone wanted to put her away. The whole graveyard shift helped in their own way, Lana Hancock from days did her part, Detective Brass, Detective Vega, hell the LVPD in general. It's not just me alone."

"I went to see her yesterday," Leon said as if Catherine hadn't spoken. "I thought that maybe I could save her child. Nurture it against its nasty nature, you understand… But the thought of raising her disgusting progeny just churned my stomach. I couldn't look at her. I told her that any child of her's and Sasha's I wouldn't be able to stomach adopting. Never. And then, imagine my surprise when she told me that the child isn't Sasha's. I asked her what she meant and she just told me to talk to you."

Catherine didn't know what to say. Slowly, she nodded. "It's… true that the child in Vera's womb is not Sasha Volkov's… But that's all I can tell you, I'm afraid."

Leon nodded slowly. "I still don't know if I'm qualified to raise the child of the woman who murdered my own."

Catherine reached across the table and took Leon's hand in hers in an attempt to comfort him. "Mr. Kuzmin… Don't think of it as a burden, think of it as a second chance to raise a child all your own. The baby shares a quarter of your genes. It's not as much as a daughter would have, but it's still your flesh and blood."

"So you think I should do it?" Leon asked. "Vera has already named me as the child's guardian. She just needs me to sign the papers. And you think I should do it?"

"Mr. Kuzmin," Catherine began, seeing his true intentions at last. "You didn't come here to ask about the child's father. You came here hoping I could convince you to sign those papers."

Leon bit his lip before nodding. "I'm sorry, Ms. Willows," he said. "But I've heard much about you. You even have my sister's respect. That is a hard thing to gain."

Catherine didn't feel like it was an honor to have Vera Volkova's respect. "Well… I'm sure she won't respect me for long. I'm pushing the state to set her execution date for as soon as she gives birth."

"Yes," Leon said, as if Catherine just reminded him of something. "She said as much—Ms. Willows, she told me that she wants to speak with you."

"I'll bet she does," Catherine muttered. "But I don't want to speak with her anymore."

"She said she would only present me with the papers if you talked to her," Leon said. "Please, Ms. Willows. What could talking hurt?"

* * *

So it was out of guilt that Catherine found herself face to face with Vera Volkova the following day. She looked at Catherine smugly. 

"What do you want?" she demanded simply. She didn't want to spend any more time in this murderess's presence than she needed to.

"I want immunity," Vera hissed into the phone. "Your precious little Greg came to me and told me that he _knows_. I swear, Catherine, I didn't tell him _anything_. And then my lawyer tells me my date is set for next August. I have one more Christmas left on this earth and I don't even get to spend it with my baby. I thought we had a deal. I keep quiet and you keep the date perpetually over the horizon."

"Our deal was that Greg doesn't find out," Catherine returned. "Now I'm sorry, Vera, but I have to be honest here. I um… oh what is the word I'm looking for, you know it I'm sure… dislike? No… hate? No, that's not it either. Ah. I know. I _abhor_ you. You are the lowest scum I have _ever_ had the pleasure to put away. There is no _way_ I want to see your filthy feet continue to walk on this green earth."

"I have papers," Vera began, "that I would like my brother to sign. I've been _pushing_ him to sign them. I expect it is in your best interest to allow him to do so."

"And why is that?" Catherine asked. "Because I'm finding it _really_ hard to care right now."

"If Leon doesn't agree to take the child," Vera explained, "then I will be asking the father to take responsibility."

Catherine narrowed her eyes at Vera. "You can't _force_ Greg to do anything."

"No," Vera acknowledged. "But like Leon, he is torn. I've seen it. He came to see me. He doesn't know if he wants the child or not. And I, like my husband, am a master at manipulation. I can convince him that he wants the child. I can make him feel so guilty for abandoning it that he will force _himself_ to sign those papers."

Catherine sighed and rubbed her eyes. "Vera, I'm tired of playing these games with you. As far as I'm concerned, you can do whatever you want."

"I'll put him through hell," Vera said quickly. "Just like I did last time." She saw Catherine's hesitation and capitalized on it. "Come on, Catherine. Where are your maternal instincts? Don't you want to protect him? Protect him from scary old me? If you want, I can convince both Leon _and_ Greg that they each want the child. What a fight _that_ will be."

"No, Vera," Catherine said flatly, rising to her feet. "I think I'm finally done making deals with you."

Vera was instantly on her feet, and for the first time Catherine saw a glimmer of fear in the woman's eyes. It filled Catherine with an insane sense of complacency. "What are you going to do?"

Catherine smirked at her. "I'm going to see if there's anything I can do to push up your execution date to sometime earlier than August."

She hung up the phone. She watch Vera scream mutely in the phone as she folded her arms and pointed to her ear mockingly. With an exaggeratedly apologetic shrug, she turned on her heal and walked down the hall. She couldn't help but grin as she heard Vera's muffled screams until the guards restrained her. Very soon, Vera Volkova would be out of all of their lives forever. And she no longer held any power over Catherine. She felt liberated. And she owed it to her friend to liberate him as well.

Having a sense of déjà vu, Catherine pulled out her phone on the way out of the prison and dialed.

It rang five times before she finally got an answer. "Sanders." He sounded breathless, and Catherine momentarily wondered why.

"Greg, you don't go in until ten tonight, right?" Catherine asked, looking at her watch.

"Uh… yeah," he said. "Why, do you need me earlier? Because I don't—"

"Oh, no," Catherine said quickly. "I was just wondering if you could spare some time before hand. Can I maybe buy you dinner at around eight o'clock before work?"

Catherine could hear the wry smile in her old friend's voice. "Aw, Cath, gee, I'd love to, but I've gotta be honest, see there's this dame I'm seeing and I don't think she'd like it if I went out with another beautiful woman."

Sara's voice could be heard giggling in the background as something hit the phone. "Oh, so I'm a _dame_ now am I? What are you, a gangster from the 30s?"

Catherine was glad to hear them finally sounding like their old selves again. She climbed into the car and backed out of the lot. "Oh Greg, you can dream on— it's not a date, it's a guilt dinner. I need to tell you something. About… Vera Volkova. And that bun in her oven."

Greg was quiet for a minute. "OK, but I'll only go if Sara can come with me, to make sure I'm being faithful. With a classy gal like you around, Catherine, I mean, I may find it hard to restrain myself."

There was more laughing on the other end on Sara's part. She said something to Greg that Catherine couldn't make out, probably another joke.

"Uh… Greg?" Catherine said. "Are you sure you want Sara to—"

"What?" Greg interrupted. "Aw, but that's no fun, Catherine! If you're going to be all secretive about it, that'll just make her more suspicious."

"I don't get it," Catherine said. "Why are you talking in code?"

"Oh. Yeah. Of course, I should have known you wouldn't want to do anything with me like socialize. Classified case. Work related. I should have known, Catherine, you saucy minx."

"Did you just call me a minx?" Catherine blinked.

"I'll apologize for that later," Greg said quickly.

"You really don't want her to know, do you?" Catherine asked. "Haven't you told her yet? Does she even know that Vera—"

"Catherine, you offend me. Never say that word in my presence again."

"Technically," Catherine said, coming to a stop light, "I'm not _in_ your presence. But that's a no then."

"Of course it's a no," Greg said. "There's no way I'm coming in early tonight. If you want to have dinner, that's fine, if you want to talk about that case, that's fine. Did you say eight?"

"I did say eight," Catherine confirmed.

"The diner?" Greg guessed.

"La Rosa?" Catherine suggested.

"Ooh, you're sure this isn't a date?" Greg joked.

Catherine rolled her eyes. "Believe me, you'll want a good meal."

"Sara likes their bruschette," Greg said. "I'll bring some home for her."

"Don't forget, it's a coat and tie kind of place," Catherine reminded him. "Show up without them and they'll make you wear one of theirs."

Greg shivered. "Gross, do you know how often they wash those?"

"Exactly, so be prepared."

"Will do."

They each hung up and returned to their previous activities. Catherine returned to driving, and Greg… Greg returned to Sara.

He climbed back on the bed where Sara sat waiting for him with a grin, her hands grasping the sheets up around her like a little girl playing hide and seek.

"You threw a pillow at me, Miss Sidle," he whispered playfully.

Sara just shrugged. "You called me a dame," she returned. "You deserved to have _something_ thrown at you. Just be glad it was only a pillow."

Greg looked down at his watch. "Well, I have to meet Catherine in three hours. Hm. Now, what can keep us occupied for three whole hours?" He smirked as he slid under the sheets and started kissing her neck.

Sara ignored him and stared up at the ceiling innocently. "We could watch Gone With The Wind," she suggested.

He pulled away from her neck to give her a dubious look. "Please, Sara, one can only take so much Clarke Gable." He went back to kissing her neck.

"But you always _did_ have a thing for Vivien Leigh," Sara pointed out.

He stopped again and looked at her with a lopsided grin. "Well, what can I say, I have a soft spot for spunky, independent women."

Sara laughed and kissed him quickly on the lips before shaking her head. "What is it about you that just makes me…"

"Wild?" Greg supplied. "Incredibly turned on?"

"Hungry," Sara said huskily.

Greg played dumb. "Aw, but Sara, we just had lunch a few hours ago—" He broke off into laughter as she pushed him down onto the mattress and climbed on top of him. "Hey, a guy could get used to this."

She laughed lightly as she caressed his cheek and nodded. "Oh yes, I'm sure you could," she said, before leaning down and kissing him slowly and tenderly. He wrapped his arms around her and she dissolved into him. There was no safer place for her than Greg's embrace.

* * *

He met her at La Rosa three hours later wearing a coat and tie, as asked for, paired with jeans and a t-shirt. Catherine had to crack a smile at the way he parodied the formal requirements of the restaurant. To be honest, she almost thought they wouldn't let him in, even though he was wearing a dinner jacket and tie like they demanded he do. Catherine, in her dark green evening gown, more than made up for Greg's almost-formality. She met him at the door and she felt the real reason Greg got away with his outfit was because the overly stimulated waiter seemed to be staring at her cleavage too much to even notice Greg. 

"It couldn't have killed you to put on a nice shirt," Catherine muttered as they slipped into their seats.

Greg shrugged. "I only wear suits for judges," Greg said. "And priests."

"I didn't know you were religious, Greg," Catherine said, intrigued.

"More out of habit than desire," Greg replied. "I stopped going to church as soon as I was away from my folks. But you still have to respect a man of God. And, of course, the big guy himself." His demeanor changed as he leaned across the table. "So tell me, Catherine, what scam is Vera trying to pull now?"

Catherine ignored him and signaled the waiter, ordering a bottle of wine before smiling broadly at Greg. "We can talk about that when the wine comes."

"That bad, huh?" Greg said, his face falling.

Catherine gave him a sympathetic smile. "No, actually," she said. "I have some good news, too."

"I'd love to hear it." His voice was confident, but his hands were shaking.

"Greg, are you OK?" Catherine asked concernedly. His pale face looked worn and tired, the only thing standing out was the faded brown scar traversing his cheek. "You look a little sick."

But Greg shook his head and frowned at her in confusion. "That's impossible, I feel on top of my game."

"Come to think of it…" Catherine said slowly. "You've been looking bad for a couple of weeks now…"

"I've just been having trouble sleeping," Greg explained away quickly. "It's not a big deal."

Catherine accepted this explanation, mainly because she didn't want to consider the consequences if it was anything more than that. "Vera's brother, Leon Kuzmin came to see me the other day. She's pressing him to be the legal guardian of the child."

"This is good news?" Greg asked, sincerely unsure.

"Well… it could be," Catherine replied. "It means that the kid will have a loving family. That you wouldn't need to… worry about it. Of course, if you _want_ the baby, then you have precedence. In my opinion, either way, you're clear. The kid's going to have a good home, Greg."

Greg stared at the table for a long time. "Is it wrong, Catherine… that I'm not sure I want that baby to have a good home at all?"

Catherine reached across the table to take Greg's hand. "Greg… It's OK. Women find themselves in your position all the time. It's hard to raise and love a child when every time you look at the kid's face you see the face of your rapist. She's going to try and convince you to take the baby, but remember Greg that it's your decision. You don't have to take the child if you don't want to. Leon Kuzmin is glad to do it."

"Is he a good guy?" Greg asked. "I mean, with that family—"

"He had a daughter," Catherine said. "Anna. She was the youngest corpse we found buried in the Volkov's backyard. Vera killed her own niece. Leon hates her as much as you do. It's one thing you have common."

The wine arrived and Greg sighed, leaning back in his chair as the waiter poured. They ordered their meals and the waiter disappeared again.

"I don't know what I'm going to do about this, Catherine," Greg said, shaking his head as he sipped is wine. "I mean, sometimes… I want the baby, I want to be a part of its life, and other times I just wish…" He couldn't say it.

"It's OK, Greg," Catherine said. "It doesn't make you a bad person."

"I can't… I can't stop thinking about the baby as an _it_. I mean… even when it's born I'll still think of it… as an it. That's not a good father. I just… I can't deal with that, Catherine, I can't. I don't care what she says to me, her brother can have the kid for all I care."

"Good," Catherine said. "That's good, Greg, that you've made a decision."

Greg nodded slowly as he stared into his wine glass. "Yeah…" he said. "Maybe it is."


	6. The Nothingness

_**Author's Note:**_ I finished this today. Whoopee! Now I'm focussing harder on "Salam." I've got to be honest, I'm glad to be done with this story. In my opinion it's been dragging on for far too long. But I think I've wrapped it up nicely, and it had a good run. There are parts I really enjoyed writing. Anyways... My guess is about three chapters left, not including this one. Enjoy. :o)

* * *

The next morning, Greg found himself writhing in his sheets. He had returned home to his own apartment, too scared to have Sara see him like this. The blood pounded in his ears like an incessant waterfall that he was about to go over in a barrel. He always teetered on the edge of sleep but never found it. He stared at the ceiling for hours. Finally, at around two o'clock, he got up, his muscles racing ahead of him and went to the kitchen to make himself a sandwich. His hypersensitivity made him jump at the tiniest sound. The window cracking from the wind. The scuttling of a cockroach under the fridge was like nails on a chalk board. The rain drumming on the roof was like a rock star who had taken his drumsticks to Greg's skull. He tried to ignore it and shrug it off, but his pounding head made it impossible.

He ate the sandwich fast before his appetite abandoned him. But he was still hungry. It occurred to him that he hadn't eaten in forty-eight hours and this thought spurred him into action as he raided the fridge, pulling out a week-old pizza and devouring it like he'd never eaten anything so wonderful in his life. Soon, the food in his fridge exhausted, he decided to head back to his room and crash back on his bed. His legs cramped up. They didn't like not moving. They spasmed anxiously, daring him to get up and run a mile. His head was killing him. He figured he was dehydrated. He probably should have grabbed a bottle of water when he was in the kitchen. Well, it was too late for should haves. Too restless to remain on his back for long, he jumped to his feet again and walked to the bathroom, his legs grateful for the exercise, and wondered quietly to himself why he tolerated feeling like this.

_Because it was worth feeling like _that.

He'd had some terribly crazy dreams the previous day. He did not wish to dwell on them long. Images of blood and Vera and a crying baby left alone in the rain. He filled a glass and chugged the water. He looked in the mirror and grasped the edges of the sink with his hands. What was he doing? Really. He wasn't so sure anymore. All he knew was the person he talked to told him that it would make him _better._ It would give him energy and focus. It would make him feel alive. It would make him happy again.

It would give him migraines and insomnia. It would make him irritable. His appetite would vary depending on dosage and intake. When the high was over, would make him feel heavy and sluggish. His muscles would betray him and move involuntarily. The come down was a valley that could feel like hell itself. These were the things he _hadn't_ told Greg.

But it was a trade off, Greg realized. To feel so good, you had to have your bad moments. And he didn't need to be happy at that moment. He was all by himself, he was allowed to wallow in his own personal hell. He could take a few more hours of this, before risking another dose. When he needed it. Because that was the only time he used it. When he needed it.

He wasn't stupid.

He looked in the mirror and deep into his bloodshot eyes. He took heavy breaths as the sweat dripped down his face, his arms shaking as they gripped the sink. His legs would spasm every now and then and throb. His hair was a neglected mop on his scalp.

He wasn't stupid. He was just desperate.

Greg wasn't sure when he had finally blacked out but it had apparently happened. When he woke up, he was exhausted. He felt as though he had been asleep for a hundred years and it still wasn't enough. He rolled over and rubbed his temples. He supposed he should get up, take a shower. But he didn't want to move. It was like something chained his limbs the bed. He slowly twisted his aching neck to look at his alarm and his eyes snapped open when he saw it was five o'clock in the morning. He tried to move again, but he felt as though he weighed a thousand pounds. Instead he just stared back up at the ceiling. He had already missed pretty much his whole shift. There was no point in getting out of bed today. He pulled the covers up around him.

Oh how he hated the come down worse than anything else.

* * *

"I think this is a good thing for you, Greg."

He hated it when she said that because she always sounded like she knew what was best for him on every issue they discussed.

"Yeah…" Greg muttered. "How's that, exactly?"

Dr. Amy Waterstone smiled broadly at him. "You've been mulling over this for a month now and you've finally made a decision. It shows you're moving forward, putting things behind you." She was a woman in her mid-forties who wore glasses and her prematurely graying blonde hair was pulled in a tight bun at the back of her head. Greg had a theory that she didn't actually need glasses, and purposefully tried to make herself look older than she was in order to appear smart, or wise, or something. He didn't know why he thought this. It might have been her condescending attitude. He wasn't too fond of his psychiatrist. He had been OK with her, until she had forced him off of the Imiprimine. Then he had pretty much decided she was evil.

"I just want her, and any reminder of her, out of my life and far away from me," Greg said, folding his arms. "If her brother wants to raise the kid, then more power to him."

"I understand," Amy said. "And I think that's a good decision."

"I mean… I don't want to think about it anymore," he said. "Can we not talk about it?"

Amy leaned back in her chair and eyed him warily. It reminded Greg of a hawk watching its prey. "OK, what do you want to talk about?"

"Can we talk about Sara?" Greg asked. "Since she saw what Sasha carved into her leg, she's been acting a lot better. Like she'd put it behind her almost. I'm… impressed. And a little… jealous."

"Jealous?" Amy sounded intrigued. "Last week you said you were happy for her."

"I-I am," he said. "But she laughs more than I do these days and she…" He swallowed. He didn't know how to say his next words without coming off as suicidal. "Everything I do, everything around me is so… dark… except for her. I love my job, but I feel like I can't breathe when I'm there, when I'm around my… friends… And it's like, coming home to her is like waking up from a nightmare, and she's there, and she's warm, and she's soft and she…" He sighed. "I want that. I want what she has. I want to know the peace she's found and where she found it. I want her to share her secret with me."

Amy looked very interested in Greg's words. She looked about to say something, but didn't speak for a long time. When she finally did speak, it was with an air of caution to her whispered tone, as though she was doing something illegal. "Greg, I think it would be a good idea if you and Sara scheduled a joint session with me," she said.

Greg cocked an eyebrow. "You mean like couple's therapy? No, we don't need that, didn't you hear me? She's incredible."

"I think it would be valuable if you listened to each other," Amy said. "The things you say to me, and the things she tells me… You need to talk to each other about them. I think it's important that you do."

Greg frowned, curiously. "Why? What does she say about me?" He paled. "She's… She's losing interest, isn't she? I'm not what she wants anymore— I can't give her what she needs, can I? Oh God…"

"No!" Amy said quickly. "No, Greg, it's nothing like that. Look, when you go home today, promise me that you'll speak with her?" Greg shrugged and nodded. "Because I _will_ ask her tomorrow if you talked to her or not, you know." Again, Greg nodded.

"Yes, Doctor," he said.

She frowned at him. "Are you OK? You don't look too good…"

"I'm fine," Greg said quickly and automatically.

"You look a little flustered," Amy said, concernedly.

"It's just hot in here is all."

But Amy was scribbling on a note as she handed it to him. "It's the name of a doctor I work closely with. He'll give you a good deal, I want him to check you out. This is the fourth session you've come to where you've seen agitated and flushed. Have you been sleeping?"

"Like a baby," Greg lied.

"Eh," Amy shrugged, handing him the paper. "See him anyway. Dr. Everett. Believe me, he's a life-saver."

"Well he's a doctor, isn't he?" Greg said with a light laugh.

She smiled. "Always the jokester," she said, shaking her head.

"Yeah," Greg replied. "I guess I am."

* * *

Greg didn't speak with Sara when he returned to her place that evening. Though he still had his own apartment, he felt much more comfortable staying with her, in her small and cluttered space. There was something about the way her place smelled that made him feel more at home there than he did at his own apartment. And a few weeks ago, Sara had finally given him his own key, which Greg took as a symbol that she really was learning to live again.

By the time Greg returned, Sara was already fast asleep, preparing for the night's work. Before joining her, Greg first stopped off at the kitchen, pouring a tall glass of water. He fingered the pill bottle in his pocket before he shook his head. He didn't need them. And his hands were clammy enough as it was. He found the note in his pocket with the doctor's name on it and pulled it out, looking at it briefly before tearing it up. He didn't want a doctor telling him what he already knew.

He clenched the glass tightly in his grasp as he lifted it with shaking hands to his lips. He was sick of people telling him that he looked… well… sick. Regardless of how true it was. He was too jittery to sleep so he caught sight of a romance novel on Sara's table top and opened it up.

He had never thought of Sara as the harlequin romance type, but here was the proof. He smiled faintly at the overly cheesy and verbose language of the first page. He read almost half of it before he couldn't stand it any longer. All this talk about muscular cowboys and passionate women was beginning to make him nauseous. He looked at his watch and felt he needed to see Sara. He rose to his feet and head to her bedroom.

Greg shed his clothes and climbed in next to Sara under the covers, spooning her from behind. Feeling her body so close to his almost seemed to quell his shivering restlessness. He took a strand of hair and pushed it behind her ear, breathing in her sweet, comforting scent. He kissed her cheek lightly and her eyelashes fluttered as she exhaled a sigh. She smiled at his touch, but did not stir. Greg swelled with an overwhelming sense of belonging. She was sleeping so peacefully, and he was averse to waking her. He could always talk to her later.

Or now was also good.

"Sara…" he whispered softly, his breath brushing against her cheek. "There are some things that I've been keeping from you. They're things that you need to know." He looked down at her, but her breathing was deep and relaxed as her eyes darted around under her eyelids.

Greg sighed. "I know how much you hate secrets. But I know you keep them from me too. I'm not sure where to start… I guess with Vera Volkova. She… raped me a few months ago. I know, crazy, right? Well anyways… Now she's pregnant and for the longest time, I didn't know what to do. I guess you could say I took the coward's way out. I just refused to deal with it. The kid's going to live with Vera's brother. Catherine tells me he's a good guy…

"That's another thing… Catherine knew about what Vera did. I'm glad you can't say anything, because I know you'd be upset to know that Catherine knew something about me that you didn't know. You gotta believe me, though, Sara, I wanted to tell you, but every time I tried you were smiling and happy, and I was so… _embarrassed_ and… I was scared. You see? You called me brave once. I just wanted to let you know that I'm not."

He hesitated before he continued. Even asleep, it was hard to confront her on this, his scariest secret of all. He bit his lip. "There's one more thing. I… haven't told anyone this. Sometimes, I even deny it to myself. But I'm scared that I… I have a problem. And it's the reason I've been having so much trouble sleeping lately. And to be honest, it's probably what's been the driving force behind our sex life. And eighty percent of my smiles. If it's any consolation, you're the other twenty percent of my smiles. But… I've been taking some amphetamines, just to keep me going. I know, it's stupid, and… I promised myself it would only be for a little while, but these days I feel like I'm drifting away from you and towards something dark and black and I don't much like it."

Greg bit his lip and stroked her hair softly. "You once told me that you didn't feel like you could give me proper thanks for saving your life without saving mine. Well I need you now, angel. I need you to save my life."

He felt Sara shift under his arm and held his breath. The smallest of frowns furrowed her brow as she began to twist in his arms. Her hands clenched at the sheets and she began a low moan. Then, her frown deepened and her eye lids were clenched tightly as she flexed her arms. Her groaning became louder and she began to kick and fight Greg's embrace.

Recognizing the tell-tale signs of one of her nightmares, Greg held fast, pinning her arms to her sides as he tried to calm her down. "Relax, angel, it's just me!" he said loudly.

"No…" she muttered, then screamed loudly as she struggled against him. She twisted around in his arms and began beating his chest with her fists, her yelling growing louder and fiercer.

Greg held her tightly, screaming at her now as he shook her, trying to free her from her personal hell. He stroked her hair harshly, saying her name over and over again until finally her eyes snapped open, laden with terror. She suddenly stopped beating his chest and her eyes welled with tears. Her lip quivered momentarily as her breath slowed. Greg felt her heartbeat running miles ahead of her against his chest.

Suddenly she pushed him away and sat up, swinging her legs over the bed. She rested her elbows on her knees as she ran her hands through her hair. She was breathing heavily. "Jesus _Christ_, Greg…" she panted.

Concerned, Greg crawled over to her and lightly rubbed her shoulders. "You haven't had a nightmare like that in…" He exhaled, shaking his head as he thought. "Wow, a long time."

Sara's throat constricted and stole her voice, so she simply nodded. She tried to control her breathing.

"I thought… you were past that," Greg said slowly.

Still not trusting her voice, Sara just nodded again. Greg brushed the hair away from her neck and began to slowly knead it. Sara closed his eyes and let out a low sigh. It was as though his fingers were gently untying the knot in her throat. She purred like a cat and tilted her head to the side and Greg took her direction and massaged her neck further.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Sara acted as though she hadn't heard him as she continued to enjoy Greg's massage. He took this as an answer in the negative and continued to try to chase away the tension her nightmares had left behind. Finally, as his hand began to get tired, Sara turned her head and gently kissed a hand of his on her shoulder. He stopped momentarily as she twisted around and softly caressed his lips with her own, her tongue sliding delicately across his lips. Her hands lightly twisted his curls around her fingers. Eventually, she broke the gentle kiss and leaned her forehead against his. Her caress was feathery and soft, like the brush of a dove's wing, and Greg really felt like he was in the presence of some divine and ghostly being who was blessing him with her holy touch.

"Thank you," Sara whispered, her voice dry and hoarse. She coughed, trying to sound more presentable, but Greg laughed and gently stroked her hair.

"Anytime, angel," he muttered, kissing her forehead.

She opened her mouth and hesitated before she spoke again. "How… How can I make it go away, Greg? Make it go away for good. I can't get his stench out of my nostrils, it's like… every time I fix myself a drink to calm my nerves, all I smell is cheap vodka and heavy cologne and I… I've tried so hard to forget it but it always comes back again, like a body you try to bury in a river but it always floats to the surface and even when you tie weights to it, it just always seems to find its way back again." Her eyes sparkled in the dim sunlight that spilled through the cracks in her heavy curtains. Her voice trembled with her next words. "Oh God, I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad I have you. You're my anchor in this storm-struck nightmare ocean and I… I don't know what I would do, if one day you weren't here to hold me and tell me everything was going to be OK."

She slid her arms around his sides and rested her palms on his back as she leaned her chin on his shoulder, her knees resting on the bed on either side of him. He rocked her back and forth and closed his eyes, reveling in the closeness of her.

"There's a reason I haven't been having nightmares," she explained slowly. Greg continued to rock her, but his eyes were now open. She continued. "Amy gave me a prescription for sleeping pills. But sometimes, even that's not enough. Sometimes, I wake up screaming, and sometimes you're not here. I hate those times more than the nightmares themselves."

Greg nodded slowly. It was now or never.

"Sara, I'm sick," he choked out.

She did not relinquish her hold on him. "I know," she whispered.

He frowned. She couldn't possibly. "I… I'm lost and I don't know what to do."

"I know."

But she didn't. He needed to explain it to her. "I just wish sometimes that I was smart, you know? So I could maybe build a time machine and go back and change things, change everything. So I could swoop in like superman and save the day and ride off on that noble steed into the horizon. There are so many things I want to take back…"

"If you keep looking over your shoulder," Sara said, "you'll miss out on all the beautiful things that are right in front of you." She pulled away and smiled faintly at him. "Things like me."

He couldn't love her more. "I could never miss you, beautiful… But… I just wish…"

But he was missing something. What it was, he couldn't say, but he knew what it wasn't. It wasn't the pain, for that he felt daily. It wasn't the shame, or the guilt, or the bafflement, or the terror. But it wasn't Sara either. He was hyperaware of all those things. It was something else entirely. And in his dreams, when he stared out into that darkness and saw only a reflection of himself swallowed up inside it, he knew then what it was that he had lost. But when he awoke, he had forgotten again, and the struggle to find the answer to a question he hadn't asked began anew. In his dreams, he was afraid of the nothingness, of the empty void of absolute zero. He knew that what he feared most was tumbling into it, that it would slowly consume him and become him, like a virus destroying him from the inside out. The pills, the lies, the secrets, the damage that was wrought by earthly demons and drenched in alcohol was nothing compared to the nothingness.

He thought for so long about the nothingness that it consumed the very room he resided in, slowly creeping its shadowy tentacles over the walls, the ceiling, the carpet, the bed, seizing Sara out of his grasp until all he could do was stare at it, this blackness in his arms, darkness into infinity where there was no light at the end of the tunnel, no hope, no soul, no redemption, just an empty void of black where he was lost and never would be found again because he was dead and rotting, his carcass being eaten by roaches and worms, the blood– Sara's blood, Vera's blood– intermingling and pouring from his veins, his eyes, his mouth, staining his teeth, staining his coffin, staining his life, and– oh how he just wanted to go home— but there was no home, there was nothing, nothing mattered because nothing was alive to begin with, not really, everything was all dead, always, everyone, and it didn't matter if one man stopped walking, breathing, talking, he was just the same as Sasha Volkov, as Ryan Woodward, Greg was just the same as any man, all men were the same in death, for no man escapes the pits of hell, not even Gregory Sanders, good old Greggo, no not even him, they were all tossed together in a heap on the funeral pyre, burning together, rotting together, birds of a feather, flocking together like good ducklings should, following the mother hen, leading them into timeless empty space where the vultures waited– no, nothing waited, because that's what Hell is– an empty void of nothingness.

But before his mind could ramble further into the depths of the void, she reached out a hand, turned on the night light, closed the closet door and brought the little boy out.

"I know."

His mind had been gone for so long he wasn't even sure what she was referring to anymore, what she knew, what she didn't know, but in that moment he felt like she knew everything, like she knew the world, like she knew _him_, and like she knew the nothingness like it was nothing new. There couldn't be nothing. Because there was Sara. And there would always be Sara. And he needed to be strong. For Sara.

"There's something I've been wanting to tell you for a long time…" he began slowly.

"You know you can always tell me anything." The feeling of her breath on his earlobe sent thrilling tremors through Greg's body.

"I love you so goddamn much," he breathed.

She squeezed her grip tighter around him and just her closeness seemed to chase away the dark. "I know."

He opened his mouth to tell her the truth. He felt invigorated, he felt alive for the first time in months, indeed in almost a year, and he felt encouraged to tell her everything in his cluttered little head. But when he tried, nothing came out, not the truth, not a lie, not even an undeniable affirmation like his declaration of love for her. Absolutely nothing tumbled from his lips and he was shocked.

She saved him, like she always saved him, with whispered words carried on the air between her lips and his ear. "I love you too, Greg."

And they slowly laid back down on the bed and he watched her until she fell asleep again. Greg closed his eyes in an attempt to mimic her. But as usual, sleep was far from him. As he waited for the sun to set, Greg wondered dimly if he had chased it away forever, and if it would ever return again. 


	7. The Website

_**Author's Note:**_ Nick's little adventure in this chapter was on the verge of being removed (as it kind of sidetracks from the main plot), but I figured an opportunity for more angst is one I should take! Also, I feel bad as Warrick has no speaking role in this entire story. Rather than fix that, let me just apologize for that now. Enjoy.

Also, FFN has a thing about incorporating web addresses in stories. So the dot coms are written as ". com" (with a space). This is not a typo. Please don't visit these websites (not that I expect you to) because I think I made them up, but I'm worried it might direct you somewhere unsavory so... Anyways, read and enjoy.

* * *

He had been scouring security tape from a crime scene in the AV lab when he felt her presence looming over him. He turned and beamed at her, but his smile was chased away when he saw the tears streaming down her otherwise stoic cheeks. 

"Nick…" she said, but couldn't continue and she started to sob.

Instantly, he was on his feet as he went over to her, his brow furrowed in concern. He gently put a hand on her forearm, but she tensed at his touch and he withdrew. "Sara? What's the matter?"

She didn't speak but simply pushed past him and went to one of the computers where she opened up Firefox. Nick walked over to her and looked over her shoulder curiously as she typed in an address that he didn't recognize but filled him with a grave sense of foreboding. _www.dominatingsluts. com_.

"Sara…" Nick said slowly, confused as the site loaded. "What are you doing?"

Sara's face was set as the tears on her cheeks began to dry, but she said no more. She was trembling, and Nick wondered what it was about this particular site that had upset her so.

He saw horrific pornographic images of women in bondage, with men normally the aggressors. Nick had never been a fan of S&M, but this site seemed particularly violent. Sara scrolled down the page until she found a link which Nick read quickly before the page changed.

_Cheating brunette bitch gets what's coming to her_.

All of a sudden, Nick's blood ran so cold he felt like it would freeze solid in his veins. He didn't even need the video to load to know what he was going to see, but load it did. It didn't start at the beginning of the tape, but Nick recognized it right away as it began in the middle.

The screams he had finally been able to get out of his head were now shattering his ear drums again as he heard Sara's frantic and pained voice trying desperately to deter Sasha Volkov. He saw the tears streaking down her face, the blood trickling down her legs, his harsh and brutal groping making her contort herself into twisted positions to try and keep him away. The clip was only a thirty seconds long, but it was enough. By the end of it, Nick's fists and jaw were clenched as his eyes were narrowed, focused on the screen. There was an option to pay $5.99 to see the video in its entirety. It made Nick want to vomit. He felt Sara's eyes on him and looked at her to see that they were dry, but she looked like she was trying hard to keep them that way.

"I want it _off_," she demanded, her voice trembling with her unexpressed furies. "Just get it _off_. Please. I can't… I can't find a way of contacting this asshole on the site at all, so I need you to track his IP and find out who the _fuck_ put this site up. And just get it _off_."

"We can pull him in," Nick said. "Take him to court, he'll—"

"No," Sara interrupted. "No, please, I don't care about that, I just want you to find this guy and take this thing _down_, please. I don't care who he is, I don't want a lawsuit or anything, I just want it to go away. And I don't want anyone to know, OK, especially not Greg or Grissom, do you understand? Just… Just do this for me, Nick. As a favor. I would do it, but I just…" She finally began to cry and Nick wrapped his arms around her as she wept into his chest. "I'm so sorry that you guys had to see that."

Nick rested his chin on the top of her head as he tried to console her. "Sara…" he whispered. "Watching it was hard enough. I can't even imagine what you went through. You can bet your ass that I'm going to find this guy and makes sure he takes down his whole sick site. You hear me, girl? Everything will be OK. I promise."

* * *

Grissom had entered the AV lab with Archie talking about something that Nick hadn't been too interested in as Nick waited impatiently for the printout of the information he needed. Grissom looked startled by Nick's presence. 

"I thought you would have finished with that security footage by now," he said.

"Yeah," Nick said, remembering what he had promised Sara. "Well, I'm just helping Sara out on her case right now." He waved the paper at him. "Listen, I'll be right back, I have to go talk to a, er, witness."

Grissom frowned at him curiously as Nick made for the door. Archie snatched the papers out of Nick's hand.

"Hey!" Nick exclaimed, glaring at Archie.

Archie was frowning at the papers. "It's my lab, I want to know what you were doing in here," he explained simply as he scanned it. He shrugged and handed the papers back to Nick. "IP address. You got this guy on a computer?"

"Yeah," Nick said, taking the papers back.

"What did he do, e-mail someone to death?" Archie asked.

Nick cracked an irked smile. "It's an ongoing investigation, I can't discuss it with you." Grissom opened his mouth to ask when Nick launched a preemptive strike. "And I'll file my full report with you at the end of shift. Now, I have to go." And with that, Nick successfully escaped. He jumped in the car and looked at floored it all the way to Henderson where he pulled up outside of this guy's house.

He knocked on the door, and a scrawny kid in his twenties answered. His skin was pasty, like he hadn't seen the sun in months, and his hair was tangled and mousy. Of course, he was a shut-in technophile. What else did he have to do all day but concoct elaborate violent fantasies about women and then post it all on the Net?

"Can I help you?" he asked.

In answer, Nick found himself punching the kid in the stomach, who doubled over in pain and looked at him in a mixture of terror and rage.

"What the hell was that for?!" he exclaimed.

"You're the webmaster of DominatingSluts-Dot-Com?" Nick hissed, the rage a low guttural growl burning in the back of his throat.

The sick kid gave him a twisted simpering smirk. "If you're an unsatisfied customer, I'm sorry but I don't do refunds."

"How old are you?" Nick demanded, fighting to contain his temper. "Twenty-one? Twenty-two? I bet this is your parents' house, isn't it?"

"I'm twenty-three," the kid said, obviously offended at being thought a year, or heaven forbid, _two_ years younger than he actually was. "And this is my _Grandmother's_ house."

Nick rolled his eyes. "So a twenty-three-year-old kid living in his Nana's house has nothing better to do than exploit good and innocent women on the Internet?"

"Hey, all the girls pictured on my site _consented_, they signed a form and—"

"Oh shut it," Nick interrupted. "Where the _fuck_ did you get the Sara Sidle tape? That was _classified_ evidence in a rape case."

The kid wrinkled his face as if he had no clue what Nick was talking about. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave now, sir." He tried to close the door, but Nick forced it open.

"Like hell you are!" he screamed. "Take it off." His voice was low and menacing.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" the kid shouted at him.

Nick clenched his teeth. He had to speak the kid's language, and it sickened him to use his words. "'Cheating brunette gets what's coming to her?' Fuck no. Take it _down_."

The kid looked genuinely shocked, then confused as he frowned at the guy and shook his head. "No, man, I got that tape off of eBay, the director said he shot it himself, said it was all legal, just acting, said the girl was a wannabe actress. It's not… It's not a…" He paled as the truth sank in and a tinge of green highlighted his face.

"Yeah," Nick said, satisfied by his disgust. "Not so hot when you realize it was an actual _crime_. The woman in that video is brave and strong and smart and decent and the man in it is anything _but_, do you hear me? She is a victim, and he is a raping murderer who died before _I_ could get my hands on him."

If possible, the kid went even paler. "You mean that… I just thought… _Shit_, I've been selling a real _snuff_ film? That guy actually _died_?"

Nick closed his eyes. The kid repulsed him too much, he couldn't look at him. He spoke through gritted teeth. "Take down the video," he whispered. "Take down the whole _site_ and go out and get a _life_, do you hear me?"

Slowly and with a mouth partially open, the kid nodded. "Listen, I just buy the tapes and sell them, I don't make 'em, alright? So I know I don't have like a license or anything—"

"Tell me who sold you the tape in the first place and I won't charge you," Nick said.

"Jeff Danvers," the kid said quickly. "That was the return address."

Nick nodded. He recognized the name. Jeff Danvers worked at the Channel Seven News station. He still didn't like the kid. "You know that blow I dealt to your stomach?" he said. "If that site's not down in twelve hours, all just be back here to deal you one worse. I will take away the only thing that entertains you when you're all alone in your dark Grandmother's house and it's that tiny little thing that hangs between your legs. Are we clear?"

The kid gulped and nodded. Nick flexed his fists, but didn't hit him. The kid wasn't worth it.

Nick didn't have time to swing by the station and deliver the bastard a personal beating, but he could threaten him over the phone on his way home, which he did, vehemently. Danvers assured him that the tape he had sold the crazy kid was the only copy he had made of the tape, and Nick warned him that if he ever found out the man was lying, he would never see anything outside the walls of a prison cell.

When he returned to the lab, Sara was waiting for him at reception. She stood upon his entrance, looking at him with wide eyes. He smiled at her reassuringly and nodded, letting her know the job had been done. She threw her arms around him.

"Thank you," she whispered in her ear.

Nick was only too glad to help. "Hey, I'm just glad I could finally do _something_ to help you out. How are you going, Sara?"

She smiled up at him, her face beaming. "Honestly? Now that that abomination is no longer on the web, I feel a whole lot better."

Nick returned the grin. "I'm glad."

Sara looked down at her watch. "I have to go meet Warrick at a scene. I just wanted to thank you for doing this for me."

"Unnecessary," Nick replied, holding up his hands. "I would have done it even if you _hadn't _asked. One question, though— how in the world did you find that?"

Sara bite her lip and rubbed her arms. "I was on an online shopping site when I saw the ad… The image looked so familiar, it was eerie… I couldn't believe it."

Nick gave her a strong smile, hoping she could gain courage from it. He rubbed her arm to reassure her that everything was better now. Big brother looking after his kid sister. "Well it's gone now, I can promise you that."

She returned his smile. "I said it before and I'll say it again— you're a great friend, Nick."

"You know it," he joked, hitting her lightly.

She laughed and nodded before waving goodbye and skipping out the door, leaving Nick feeling incredibly self-satisfied.

Until he heard a crash coming from the layout room, accompanied by screaming…

* * *

His face was pale and his eyes were blood shot and highlighted by gray and heavy bags, but he worked diligently like a slave of the system as he scanned and rescanned the blood splatter patterns sprawled out in the photos before him. There was a gap here, which suggested that's where the victim had stood, but if that had been the case then the trajectory was all wrong. So something _else_ must have been there, something that was then removed from the scene. The killer had taken something with him, something large… but what? 

There was a knock at the door. Assuming it was a colleague, Greg only looked up briefly to recognize them and then looked down again. He did a double take when he realized it was no one he recognized.

"Excuse me," said the person at the door. "I don't mean to bother you, but I'm looking for Catherine Willows, I have something urgent to discuss with her."

"Oh…" Greg said. "Um, I'm sorry, you just missed her. She left yesterday on vacation. She took her daughter skiing for the holidays."

"Ah…" said the man, understanding. He turned to leave when another idea struck him. He turned around and looked at Greg. "You wouldn't be able to tell me where I might find Greg Sanders, would you?"

Greg was surprised at the request and it was evident in his expression. "He's really busy right now. Why are you looking for him?"

"It's a private matter," the man replied.

"Tell me who you are and I'll let him know you dropped by," Greg said.

The man narrowed his eyes at Greg. "You look sick," he said. "May I ask where you got that scar on your cheek?"

Greg's fingers flew to his face and he turned away from the man, focusing instead on his work. He heard the blood rushing through his ears and tapped his foot in order to dispel his extra energy.

"It's a private matter," he mimicked.

He heard the door click shut and assumed the man had left as he immersed himself in the crime scene photos again, trying to make a shape out of the negative space the blood splatter left behind. It moved out triangularly, like a pyramid, but then narrowed again further down. A lamp? Why would the killer take a lamp?

Greg felt a chillingly skeletal hand on his shoulder which caught him off guard. Immediately, the young CSI reacted, grabbing the man's arm and jumping to his feet as he twisted it behind his back, forcing the man's torso into the table behind them. The man cried out as he doubled over in pain and Greg forced his head down onto the table.

Realizing what he'd done, the baffled CSI immediately relinquished his grip on the older, stronger looking man and took a few paces back. "I—I'm so sorry…" he began. "I'm not sure what came over—"

He was interrupted by a quick blow to the stomach and he let out an 'oof' of surprise as he clutched at his throbbing abdomen, trying hard to repress the gag reflex. As his organs felt like they were reorganized, the drugs began to kick in and all of Greg's unused energy shot through him like fire. He retaliated with a vengeance, dealing his assailant a quick uppercut and hitting him in the jaw. The man's head went up and his nose began to bleed and Greg took advantage of his exposed throat, pushing the man up against the wall, his forearm pressed firmly against the man's jugular, threatening to press down.

By now, they had gathered an audience, people who had heard the noise, or seen it through the windows as they walked by. But Greg was only barely aware of their presence as he felt the man's breath enter and exist his lungs, rushing by his wrist as it swirled inside the man's trachea. He pressed down and the man began to splutter.

All of a sudden, he felt strong hands gripping into his shoulder but he shrugged them off angrily, pressing his arm firmer into the man's jugular. The sweat was rolling down his temples and he clenched his teeth.

The hands returned, this time clenching his upper arm, and through the rush of blood in his ears he heard someone calling his name, sounding angry and panicked all at once. Greg dropped the first man and took a swing at the second pulling at his arm but missed by a mile and staggered forward. The second attacker came up from behind him and tried to pin his arms down. Greg struggled against his grip but his attacker was stronger than him and he couldn't escape it. Being overpowered like this brought back too many painful memories that Greg tried like crazy to block out but they just came pouring out.

He screamed loudly, threatened to kill whoever had a hold of him. He said they would pay, he screamed he would kill them if he had the chance, kill them both.

Eventually the mist in his head began to clear as he wondered what had set him off in the first place. He became aware of the strong arms that still held him, and the familiar but anxious voice that was screaming at him.

"_Greg! Calm the fuck down!_"

His breathing was ragged and sharp as the air cut into his lungs like knives. All of a sudden, his muscles felt like spaghetti and they collapsed in on him all at once and he was Jello in this person's arms, whoever he was.

The man, instead of catching him, just followed him to the ground as Greg fell to his knees, his arms still tightly pinning Greg's limbs down in case he lashed out again.

"I'm OK…" Greg breathed, though hearing his voice he knew no one would believe him. He didn't even believe himself. His head was spinning, and he was exhausted. He hadn't been able to sleep in a month and no suddenly it was all catching up to him, his body protesting, the adrenaline gone, and all that was left was this collapsed bag of skin and bones.

"What the _fuck_ has gotten into you, man?" the voice demanded. Greg detected the signature southern drawl, which was always more distinct when its owner was angry.

"I'm so tired, Nick..." he mumbled. He wasn't even sure if it was intelligible. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against Nick's chest. "Can't I just… for a little while…"

"Greg, you're shaking something fierce," Nick was saying as he slapped his cheeks lightly to keep Greg awake. "Are you sick? What's wrong, man, you can tell me."

"I… so tired…" was all Greg could manage to say.

Nick's hand had flown to Greg's forehead. "He has a fever," he said. "Call an ambulance."

"No…" Greg muttered, with whatever strength he had left. "No ambulance, I'm fine…"

But Nick was laying Greg down on the floor and his head rested on something soft. He couldn't control his shivering as he tossed on the floor. He was so cold. He needed heat. He needed something. But Nick was bringing more cold, putting something damp and wet on his head. He shivered and felt it burn him like a hot poker and seared his flesh. He felt like he was being branded, a cow being prepared for the slaughterhouse. The heat. The freezing heat. It sent shivering spasms through his body. His skin tingled with the conflicting temperatures. He felt as though he had just recovered feeling in his whole body, like it had been asleep like one's foot might fall asleep, and upon waking up it was stinging madly as the blood flowed back to it. Nonetheless, he didn't want Nick's help. "I'm _fine_!" Greg kept insisting, fighting to stay conscious. "I just need some _sleep_ and I'll be _fine_!"

But it was obvious that he was far from fine. He refused to go in an ambulance. He'd fight it if he could help it. What was happening to him? His supplier had never told him about this. This wasn't supposed to happen.

He thrived on the floor for what seemed like an eternity, Nick's voice floating in and out of focus as the wet cold heat dripped into his hair from his forehead.

"What's going on?" asked a new, strange voice.

"He's got a fever, I think he's going into convulsions."

Something was happening, but everything was moving too fast for Greg to follow. He tried to make sense of the voices and the words that were passing over his head.

"Vitals… one hundred and three… don't have the right tools to… known pyrogens… don't know… disease… can't… syringe… now would be good."

Greg's mind wove in and out of understanding as the sweat began to drip into his eyes, which started stinging in protest. Something was stabbed into his arm and he cried out half-heartedly before passing out.


	8. Little Lydia

_**Author's Note:**_ Sorry if this chapter drags on. The next one is the last. And then it's finally over. R&R my lovelies.

* * *

He dreamed in black and white. Notes of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata drifted in his ears. He stood on a black and white checkerboard of a floor with no walls or ceiling, just blackness stretching off into the horizon as far as the eye could see. He turned around and saw the back of a lean woman who sat at a grand piano, her back stiff but her body swaying ever so slightly with the music. Her long blonde hair reached the hemline of her jeans and was neatly brushed. He listened to her for a moment, letting the quiet sounds of the piano wash over him and clear his mind. 

He approached the woman, hoping to compliment her on her playing but when he got near enough to see her face, he stopped dead.

Vera Volkova played the piano so smoothly and effortlessly, she sounded like she had been playing since the womb. Her eyes were closed as she played and read no sheet music. Greg was speechless as she continued with the piece, seemingly oblivious to his presence.

And then, she changed, her hair growing shorter, her back less rigid as she shrank before Greg's eyes into someone completely new, someone Greg didn't altogether recognize. Her cropped blonde hair reached just up to her chin and curled under. She wore a black head band and played remarkably well for a tiny thing with skinny fingers. Her little feet couldn't even reach the pedals. The music slowed and came to a stop and she smiled up at Greg with a gap-toothed grin.

"Did I do good, Daddy?" she asked, her blue eyes sparkling. They were the only color in the whole room, those dancing blue eyes.

Greg smiled fondly at her and kneeled down as she hopped off the bench. He scooped her up as she wrapped her tiny arms around his neck and giggled as he swept her off her feet into the air and spun around.

"Angel," he said, "you were magnificent."

She pecked him on the cheek as he adjusted his grip on her and laughed. The sound of it was more beautiful than the music from the piano. She leaned in close and whispered in his ear.

"I love you, Daddy," she said. "Do you love me too?"

Greg opened his mouth to respond enthusiastically when the words hitched in the back of his throat, like a hiccup. Startled, he pulled away just enough to see her smiling chubby face as she looked at him curiously. He tried to say it again, but the same thing happened and he didn't understand it.

The smile on her little face faded, and she blinked at him with those big blue eyes. She wore an expression that was much too old for her face, her eyes carrying wisdom beyond her five years. "I would have been good, you know, Daddy," she said, her voice, too, sounding similarly older than she looked. She struggled in his grasp and he let her down. She looked up at him with bright eyes before continuing.

"I sing pretty too, you know," she said. "Or, maybe not pretty yet. I sing loudly, though. But you always grit your teeth and pretend it sounds pretty." She grew before his eyes, and was now eight or nine. "Eventually, you decide to pay for singing lessons. I take them eagerly. And when I get tired of them, you don't let me quit. You make me continue with my piano too."

She grew older still, now twelve or thirteen. She carried a soccer ball under her arm and wore a green and black soccer uniform. She began dribbling the ball and bouncing it in the air and off her knees. "Soon enough, I'm on the soccer team. When I'm twelve, I bust my knee. Grandma flips, and I start crying, but you tell me that I'm tougher than I look. You say that no one, not even a soccer ball, can ever keep me down for longer than I allow them to. You make a joke about how you'll personally go and deflate the soccer ball to teach it a lesson and I laugh. My knee heals, but I remember what you said for the rest of my life."

She grew again, this time looking fifteen or sixteen, her uniform replaced by a spaghetti strap top and a jean miniskirt with knee-high boots. She was holding a compact mirror out as she applied lipstick. She smacked her lips together and smiled at Greg. "I start dating at fourteen and you freak out. At fifteen, I come downstairs dressed like this and try to go to school. Even though I'm already late you make me go upstairs and won't let me leave until I put on a t-shirt and jeans. I end up missing first period completely because I argued with you for longer than it took me to change."

She closed the compact and tucked it away in her purse, pulling out a black sweater jacket, which she pulled tightly around her shoulders. She buried her hands in the pockets. "When I'm sixteen, I come home from a date in tears because some jerk wouldn't take no for an answer. I sprayed him with mace, which you insisted I carry ever since I started dating. You make me tea, and Sara puts on the First Wives' Club and the three of us watch it together, throwing popcorn at the screen and insulting men. You're the butt of most of our jokes, and you're glad to play the part because it makes me and Sara laugh. The next day at school, not only is the jerk's face magenta because of the mace, but someone keyed his car and spray painted 'Rick Cross Has A Tiny Penis' across his windshield. When I come home, I find spray cans in the trash."

She continued to grow older, eighteen or nineteen as she wore a trendy blazer and jeans. "I get into Princeton on a music scholarship and double major in music and chemistry. My chem. professor jokes and says I really have a talent for blowing things up. My music professor encourages me to audition for the opera house. I get in as the youngest soprano in New Jersey history and sing Carmina Burana with professionals. You blow off an important conference that Grissom insisted you attend just to see me sing."

She grew even older, now in her mid-twenties, her shoulder-length blonde hair pulled back in a tight pony tail as she wore a lab coat. "When I'm twenty-six, the conductor at the concert hall I'm working at in Boston dies. It's passed off as a suicide, an overdose of anti-depressants, until I point out to the CSIs investigating that the reaction happened way too fast and there had to be a catalyst. They run some tests and find out there was. A neurotoxin which interfered with his prescribed medications. The jealous cellist slipped it to him. This earns me a job offer over at the Boston Crime Lab. They need a ballistics tech, and like my old professor said, I have a penchant for watching things explode. I take it."

She continued to grow, now in her mid thirties and a wedding dress. "On my wedding day, you tell me that my fiance doesn't deserve a woman as beautiful and brilliant as me. At first, I think you're being overprotective, but then my husband cheats on me five years later. I feel embarrassed and depressed, until I remember what you told me when I was twelve and I miss you because you're so far away in Vegas. But I don't have time to go back and see you. My new job in Boston is too demanding."

The white gown turned black and the girl grew even older. A tear strolled down her cheek. "By the time I finally make it back to Nevada, it's for your funeral. And I go to your open casket and tell you, 'I was a good daughter, wasn't I Dad? I made you proud. Didn't I?'"

She stopped talking and Greg stared at her dumbstruck. "I'm so sorry…"

But she was shaking her head, her blue eyes wide and her lips straight. "I could have been yours, Daddy. I could have been your baby girl. Your little angel. Your little Lydia."

She was suddenly a five-year-old girl again, but the expression on her face remained unchanged. "But you didn't want me. You didn't want this."

She turned around and walked away. Greg reached out after her, tried to call her name, but no sound came out. She just kept walking, her little footsteps echoing off the nonexistent walls until she faded away.

Moonlight Sonata filled the room again, and Greg turned to the only piece of furniture in the room: the grand piano.

She was there again, drumming out Beethoven's notes as though she had written them herself. Slowly he approached her and rested a tentative hand on her shoulder. She stopped playing and looked up at him. She had a black eye. For some reason, this frightened Greg and he stepped backwards. A smile crept across her features. He turned away from her and started walking off into the darkness.

There was an odd, dissonant cord that rang out through the empty space and made Greg stop. He turned ever so slightly to see Vera Volkova sitting backwards on the bench, her elbows leaning on the keys of the piano which had caused the unharmonious sound. One foot was drawn up on the bench near her while the other was stretched out lazily like a cat's.

"It's not your fault," she told him.

Greg walked over to her, absolutely calm. "I don't care."

"You're lying," Vera cooed. "Believe me, I know a liar when I see one. I was married to one for ten years. You wanted that. You wanted her. I am truly sorry."

"You're lying, too," Greg replied. "You have never been sorry for anything in your life."

"There was nothing left for me in this world other than that child," Vera replied simply. "I wanted her too, Greg. I really did."

Greg shook his head. "Things are better this way. For everyone."

"Not for me," Vera said. "I am to be executed in August."

"That was going to happen anyway," Greg pointed out.

"But now I die without a legacy," Vera whispered. "She was all I had left, Greg."

Greg turned his back on the vile woman, his eyes welling with tears. "Then you shouldn't have killed her."

* * *

Greg's eyes snapped open and he gasped for air as though he had just broken the surface of a body of water he had previously been drowning in. His vision was blurry at first, but as it cleared he could make out a white ceiling above his head. He wasn't too sure where he was. When he tried to move his arms, they were stiff and sore, and he found they were hooked up to machines. He looked down at them curiously. His head throbbed mercilessly and he felt painfully dehydrated. He wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep and hope when he woke up the pain would be gone 

Something move and Greg looked up with doe eyes to see Nick who was leaning on the wall opposite of his bed and watching him intently.

"How long was I out?" Greg croaked.

"Not including the two days you spent writhing with fever, you've been sleeping peacefully for eighteen hours," Nick said. "That was some nap you took, Greggo."

Greg heaved a huge sigh. "Yeah, well I haven't been sleeping well lately."

Nick pulled out a small orange bottle as he walked quietly over to the bed. "Gee, these wouldn't have anything to do with that, would they?"

Greg closed his eyes and leaned his head back like a teenage boy whose stash of weed had just been discovered by his parents. "Grissom's gonna kill me."

"Oh I wouldn't be worrying about Grissom right now," Nick said sternly. "You've been down for almost three days now until they could fully detox you're system. I mean, what the hell were you thinking, Greg?"

Greg turned his head away in shame. "I'm sorry I let you down, Nick."

Nick exhaled a long sigh and let go of his anger. "How long has this been going on?"

"About a month," Greg replied. Nick looked surprised. "I know, I only intended on using them for a week or so…"

"No," Nick interrupted him, sounding exhausted as he sank into a chair by the bed. "I… I just thought it would have been much longer than that. You know, after the Volkovs or something." Greg cast his gaze downwards, not knowing what to say. Nick continued. "Um… Listen. Only the doctors and I know about the pills so… So if it's only been a month, then I'm thinking that things won't be so… so bad. I know a place. A clinic. I think it would help you."

Greg bit his lip and nodded. "How come… How come only you know? What about Grissom? Or Sara?"

But Nick was shaking his head. "I road with you in the ambulance. I wanted to make sure you were OK. They were working when the doctors told me what happened to you. If you just go to the clinic and chill out a little, I think we can keep things on the down low. I'll tell Grissom that confidentiality is—"

"Grissom?" Greg interrupted fearfully, looking up. "But you said… Does he have to know?"

Nick held his breath a second. "Yeah, Greg. I mean… he's your supervisor, of course he has to know."

Greg looked away again in defeat. "Right. And I should come clean to Sara too. The last two people I wanted to know. Bye bye confidentiality."

Nick sighed. "Well I can't help you with that. But you've survived two psychopaths, I think you can fight a little addiction."

Greg pulled his knees up under the covers and hugged them to his chest. It had been a while since he'd taken a position like this, but he understood why Sara drew so much comfort from it. He felt safe in his own embrace, like no one outside could hurt him. "I know I disappointed you."

"I think that's impossible, Greg," Nick said. "You've been through a shit load. You tried to deal. You couldn't. It doesn't make you weak, it makes you human."

Greg smiled at him. "Thanks," he said. "For not judging."

Nick looked down at his knees, then up at Greg again. "I'd be a hypocrite if I did. When I was in college I did a few things I'm not proud of. I know the kick speed gives you. I get how that can be addictive."

Greg wrinkled his brow in bafflement. "You? Drugs? OK, that totally doesn't connect in my head at _all_."

"That's because you're brain was on drugs," Nick replied. "Come on, I bet you were a different person when you were younger."

"Nope," Greg chirped. "I've always been the same old me." He grinned proudly and inspired a laugh from Nick.

"How are you feeling?" Nick asked.

"I have the headache from hell, but I'm suppressing it," Greg replied honestly, the space between his temples throbbing. "It'll bite me in the ass eventually, but for now… Argh, and my muscles feel like I ran ten miles without stretching. I'm sore and tired and everything seems so… sharp."

"That's the withdrawal," Nick explained. "You might break into some cold sweats, go through a few more fevers, but… It'll be gone in a few days."

Greg banged his head against the wall. "A few days of hell to get clean. I guess I can do that." Something suddenly occurred to him. "Who was that guy? The one who I, uh…"

"Attacked?" Nick supplied with a weak smile. "Yeah, I was wondering the same thing, so I asked him. At first, I thought maybe he had provoked you, but he said you flipped out on him for no reason. He said his name was Leon Kuzmin. Claims to be Vera Volkova's brother."

Greg's mouth formed a small 'o.' "Wow. Did he say what he wanted to tell me?"

"I think he's afraid of you now," Nick replied. "I told him that it was nothing personal, you'd just been through a lot. He said he'd drop by later. That reminds me, Grissom and Warrick said they'll be by tomorrow to check on you. And Sara is—"

"Right here."

The two men's eyes flew to the door to see the slender brunette standing in the doorway watching them and holding two cups of coffee. She approached Greg's bed and handed a cup to Nick before shaking her head at Greg with the hint of a smile. "Oh Greg, why is it every few months you always seem to land yourself in the hospital?"

"It's because I'm dying…" Greg moaned, his headache getting the better of him. He truly felt like he was with every muscle in his body shaking and his brain jumping up and down in his skull, even if he'd meant it as a joke.

"That's not funny," Sara said flatly.

Through the pain, Greg tried to smile at her apologetically. "How are you doing, angel?"

Nick rose to his feet and held his breath as he clapped his hands together. "You know what?" he said, looking at his watch. "Shift starts in an hour, I really should get going. See you later, Sara. Greg." And with that, he headed out.

Sara took his vacated chair and took Greg's hand in hers. "What's wrong with you? Nick said you were sick, but that you're better now. He wouldn't tell me what. You don't have Cancer or AIDS or something do you?"

Greg laughed. "No, angel, nothing like that," Greg said. "But… I've been stupid lately. Really stupid. And I'm scared that… you won't like me, after you find out how weak I've been."

Sara smiled at him reassuringly as she leaned over and pushed the hair back from his sweaty face before kissing him tenderly. When she broke away again, she ran her hands through his stiff hair and looked at him with soft brown eyes. "Greg," she whispered. "What did I tell you four months ago about give and take?"

Greg felt encouraged as he squeezed her hand. "I love you so much. I just want you to know that."

She kissed his forehead. "I do," she said. "And I love you too."

Greg swallowed hard, his conscience hammering on his skull. He had this absurd notion that if he just told her, it would all stop. All the physical pain that was ripping him to shreds, all the guilt weighing heavily on his mind, all of it would just go away and everything would be OK in the end. "About a month ago, I started taking amphetamines to take the edge off and stay sharp."

She pulled her hand out of his grip and her smile faded. Greg had been afraid of that.

He tried to continue, but found it was impossible to look her in the eye. "I know. You have every right to be upset with me, but I just want to say that it can be really hard just going through life every day, putting on the smiles for everyone else, when all I can think about is you, when you're the only thing keeping me alive really. I mean, there are worse things I could have done. Really worse. If I wasn't such a coward I may even have done them, but I am a coward, and moreover I love you way too much to do anything worse. Because it would have hurt you more than it would have helped me, even if…" He looked down. "It was just kind of the easiest solution at the time. But I'll get better. I promise you, I'll get better. Nick, he knows a clinic, he said that I could go there, straighten myself out, get my act together. I'm not as strong as you think I am, and I'm sorry for that."

Sara swallowed and nodded. Greg looked up at her with a desperate gaze, hoping she would say something, anything, to alleviate the pressure that was ready to explode his skull. He felt for sure that her next words would break his heart.

He was surprised when he found that they did. But not for the reasons he had been anticipating.

"Sometimes when I have nightmares and I wake up and you're not there, I feel so alone that I find myself right back in that concrete basement again, scared out of my wits, naked and bleeding. And the thought of having to wake up every night without you there scares the fuck out of me. I don't want to go back there. It's bad enough the bastard's eyes still burn a hole through my chest when I dream, but it would be so much worse if you weren't there to make it all go away when I woke up again.

"Since I first read the scars on my leg, I've made it a habit to read them every night when I wake up to go to work. Desensitize myself to the horror of it all, you know? And you would be out somewhere. If you slept over, you'd be making dinner for me in the kitchen. If you didn't, well then you were just gone. But I would always do it without you, because in a way I was trying to desensitize myself to that fear too. I needed to learn to do things without you. I needed to stop being afraid to face the world… without you. And I always cried. Because the words always conjured up everything I never wanted to feel again. And because I thought that I would never be able to do things on my own. Except two days ago. Two days ago, I woke up and I didn't cry. Two days ago was when I told myself that I was stronger than any dead man and better than any rapist. And two days ago was when I get a call from Grissom saying you're in the hospital. Ironic, isn't it?"

He reached out to rub the back of her neck but she backed away from the bed, her gaze on something he would never see as she slowly shook her head.

"And then you tell me that it's drugs. That it's things that you've been putting in your body that are fucking you over and— I can't… can't deal with that, Greg."

"I understand, angel…" Greg muttered shamefully.

"No, you don't," Sara said abruptly and Greg frowned at her. "I mean, you think you do, but you don't. It's not that I'm mad at you for taking drugs. You think I wouldn't like to have an escape like that? I've been drinking like a fish ever since the Volkovs. I know, it's bad, huh. How fast can you say 'relapse?'" She chuckled, but there was no joy in it. "I just can't deal with the thought of losing you, Greg. Not now, not yet."

"There's something else," Greg said, looking out the window. If there was ever a time to come clean, now was it. "When Vera Volkova took me, and drugged me, and I was kinda really out of it. So I found out last month that cutting me and stripping me isn't all she did. She, uh…" Greg gulped. "Well, she decided that, uh… she really, _really_ wanted a baby, and Sasha wasn't giving it to her so she… She decided to get it from me."

His girlfriend provided no response and after a whole minute, Greg was forced to turn and look at her to make sure that she was still there. She was looking at him in complete impassivity, save the single tear that rolled down her cheek. Suddenly, her arms were around his neck and he tried not to wince at the way she squeezed him because he didn't want her to let him go. He returned it, his own tears stinging his eyes as he stroked her hair.

"I'm so sorry…" she whispered. "I'll kill her. I'll kill her so bad…"

Greg had to smile at her bad grammar. "She's on death row, angel. She'll die soon enough."

"Greg, _tomorrow_ isn't soon enough," Sara muttered. Suddenly she pulled away from him with a gasp. "Oh God, that… the baby in her stomach, it's…"

"Mine," Greg finished her sentence. "I know. I… I didn't know what to do, so I— I kind of waved over my rights as father to Vera's brother. Catherine says he's a good guy, that he'll take care of the kid, raise her right, you know?"

"Her?" Sara breathed. "It's a—it's a her?"

Greg closed his eyes and gave her a small smile. "Actually, I don't know," he said. "But that's the first time I haven't thought of the baby as an it. Better 'her' than 'it,' right?"

Sara smiled. "I'm so proud of you," she said.

Greg was flabbergasted. "Proud? I land my ass in the hospital because drugs fucked with my system, I abandon my own child, and you say you're _proud_ of me?"

"I don't see it like that," Sara said. "I see it like… You landed your ass in the hospital because you were trying too hard to look happy for everyone else. You did what's _best_ for your child because you knew that you could never give her the love she deserves. And I _am_ proud of you, for both of those things, because it only underlines what I knew about you all along, and that's that you're brave, and you're smart."

Greg's headache was threatening to toss him into unconsciousness and throw away the key. "You still think I'm brave?" he asked, his voice sounding like a child's.

"I never doubted it," she said. "We're dealing. With a lot. And today was the first time I woke up and looked at my leg and I didn't cry. Last night, I slept soundly. I had a good day today. And when you get out of here, and you get clean, you'll do OK. As much as I hate shrinks, Amy isn't half bad, and I think she's helped us both a lot. We're survivors, Greg, you and me both, and we've proved it time and time again. It's time to stop just surviving and start living again."

He gave her a small smile, exhaustion overwhelming him. "Aw, you really are an angel, angel…" he muttered, before his eyelids were too heavy to keep open.

The last thing he heard was Sara's whispered command. "Sleep."

And sleep he did, however restlessly. But this time, it was dreamless.


	9. Happy New Year

_**Author's Note:**_ A "Special Features" chapter will be posted later for folks who are interested.

* * *

There she was, standing in his door again, and there he was refusing to let her in. He had let her in once before after all, and she had made his house that much brighter and warmer until she burned it to the ground. Gil Grissom knew that candles were meant to be looked at not touched. Sara Sidle was the same way. 

"Do you need this by end of shift?" she asked.

Grissom nodded absently, staring down at his papers. He didn't want to watch her retreating back. He didn't think he could stand watching her walk away from him again.

"OK." Her voice was soft but her presence was anything but. Even as he blindly flipped through paperwork, signing his name where needed, he knew she was still there, standing in the doorway, waiting for him to give her something, anything but the silence and nothingness. Finally, he looked up at her.

"What do you want from me?"

She entered the office, obviously taking this as an invitation and closed the door behind her. "I think we should talk."

Grissom's stomach twisted with apprehension and he turned back to his papers. "We can talk later, I have a lot of work to do."

"No," Sara insisted, coming further into the room and sitting in the chair opposite Grissom's desk. "No, see, you did this _all_ the time when were dating and I'm sick of it."

"As I recall," Grissom said, looking up at her, "towards the end, it was you who didn't want to talk."

Sara looked down at her knees. She couldn't argue with that. She looked up at him again. "What are you going to do about Greg?"

Grissom's pen hovered over the page as he hesitated signing his name. "I'm going to talk to him," he said slowly. "I think it will be pretty routine. I'll keep up with his counselor to make sure he's attending meetings…" He looked up at Sara and frowned. "You won't believe who his sponsor is."

Sara cocked an eyebrow. "Grissom, I didn't mean—"

"Nick," Grissom interrupted. Sara did look surprised. "I don't know, he said some stint back in college, but it's not in his file."

"Probably off the record," Sara said. "First offense. Besides, it's Texas, who knows how they do things over there."

Grissom closed the file and rose to his feet. "If I don't get this to Ecklie, I'll be walking around without a head tomorrow."

Sara said nothing but as he tried to pass her by, her hand shot out and she grabbed his arm. "I'm not finished with you yet, Gil Grissom."

Her touch, which once brought endless warmth, now froze him to the bone. "You were pretty finished with me three months ago."

She looked up at him, her brown eyes pleading. "There used to be a time when we trusted each other, Gil. What happened to that?"

"You slept with someone else," he replied simply, his voice devoid of emotion. He made for the door again but Sara rose to her feet.

"And I'm sorry for that!" she called after him. He stopped again. She sighed. "OK, so I walked right into that one, I deserved that. But you told me once that all things considered, things like that are too pointless to worry about."

Grissom pushed his emotions down into the pit of his stomach as he turned to face her. "I almost lost you, Sara," he whispered. "In a situation like that, everything else in the world is too pointless to worry about. It doesn't change what you did."

"I know that," Sara said, her voice filled with regret. "And you have no idea how horrible I feel. I just hope that someday you can forgive me."

All of a sudden, Grissom turned around, his eyes accusing. "Sara, I have to know. Why did you say it?"

Sara knew perfectly well what he was talking about. "I was upset, Grissom… I was upset because you didn't trust me anymore, and I was afraid that you didn't…" She swallowed. "That you didn't love me anymore."

Grissom's heart was breaking all over again and he refused to let it. "And when I heard from the mouth of a killer that the most incredible woman I have ever known was sleeping with my friend, how do you think I felt, Sara? I've come to terms with our relationship, or lack thereof—"

"Oh don't you try to bullshit me like that, Grissom, I know damn well that you haven't come to terms with _anything_," Sara snapped. "Else what I said wouldn't bother you nearly as much as it did."

"It wasn't what you said," Grissom replied, gritting his teeth. "It was your attitude."

"My _attitude_?" Sara laughed. "Hell no, it was what I _said_, I saw how you took it."

Grissom looked away from her. "Did you mean it?" he asked quietly.

Her anger faded and her face fell. "Oh Gil…"

"Did you?"

She sighed. "You couldn't have thought for a moment that I did," she whispered. "After what I told you at the hospital?"

Grissom rubbed his eyes. He was suddenly very tired. "I don't know anymore, Sara. I wouldn't have been surprised."

Sara still had a soft spot for Gil Grissom, and she knew she always would. She smiled reassuringly at him and walked over to him. She took her hand and put it against her cheek. It was warm and rough and it reminded Sara of all the fleeting touches, all the soft caresses they had shared in previous years. Old habits die hard. "Look at me," she ordered. His eyes still avoided hers. "Please?" Grissom finally obliged and felt her piercing gaze bore into him. "Let me set the record straight. I'm sorry I said that I never loved you. Because it was probably the biggest lie I've told in my life. It was a self-defense effort you see. Because I still love you. A part of me always will. You're a good person, Gil Grissom."

"You're with Greg now…" Grissom said, pulling his hand away from her.

"I know that," Sara said, nodding. "But we're talking about you now. You're a part of my past, Grissom. You're a part of me. And I love you for all of that. You never did anything wrong. We didn't work. And I'm sorry we didn't work. But can you ever forgive me"

Grissom smiled at her and nodded. "I love you, Sara," he said. "And because of that… I can forgive you. You asked for space. I ask for time."

Sara grinned. "I can give you time. So are we good now?"

"As good as we'll get," Grissom replied. He looked at the file in his hand. "Now I really should be getting this to Ecklie."

Sara nodded. "Yeah, good luck with that."

His smile broadened and Sara knew that things would be a little less tense with him now. And as time went on, there was a possibility things would go back to normal. She didn't know when, but for once, she was OK with not knowing.

Things were pulling themselves together.

* * *

Leon Kuzmin never showed up to the hospital, but Grissom and Warrick did. Warrick had come bearing gifts, handing Greg the Sports Illustrated Swim Suit Edition. He said it seemed just a little bit classier than a playboy until Greg pointed out that Playboy was pretty much the same as _Time_ with naked girls, while Sports Illustrated was like news for jocks. Warrick had just rolled his eyes and said he'd take football over politics any day. 

Grissom had remained quiet through most of the conversation, but had eyed Greg intently. When he spoke, it was to inquire about his health or his life in general. He said nothing about the pills, possibly because Warrick was there. But the look in his blue eyes told Greg that Nick had told him everything.

A few days later, Catherine called and he received an earful from her about drug abuse and responsibility. Greg felt like he was talking to his mother, but it only made him smile. In the end, she just told him to "Stop scaring the shit" out of her or she would kill him herself just to keep from worrying about him all the time. He'd told her to go back to Lindsey and giver her an awesome Christmas.

It was the day before Christmas Eve when Greg was finally released after being hospitalized for a week during his most painful withdrawal symptoms. Nick had driven him home, with a quick stop off at Sun Valley Clinic to check Greg in for his first session. Nick had waited patiently for him in the car until the hour meeting had ended and he drove Greg home, telling 'a guy walked into a bar' jokes. Greg had heard most of them, but he loved to listen to the Texan tell them. For some reason, the southern drawl made them that much funnier. Also, Greg found Nick's voice comforting, like the brother calming his kid brother down after he'd broken curfew to get drunk and was in trouble with their parents.

Sara was at his apartment when he got there wearing a Santa hat. She had decorated an artificial tree with tinsel and baubles. She apologized for it being artificial, but said it was impossible to find a real Christmas tree in Las Vegas.

They were snuggling on Greg's small couch watching a sitcom when Greg's phone began to ring. He didn't recognize the number so answered warily.

"Hello?"

"Is this Greg Sanders?"

"Yeah," Greg said. "And this is?"

"My name is Leon Kuzmin. I am Vera Volkova's brother."

Greg's breath hitched in his throat. "Yes. Um. Can I help you?"

"Catherine Willows gave me your home address… I hope that's OK. I'm outside now. I was wondering if I would be able to come up and speak with you. I won't take long. I have something very important to discuss with you."

Greg slowly nodded. "Yeah, sure, come on up," he said, rising to his feet. He went over to the wall and buzzed him in. Sara was watching him curiously.

"Who's coming up?" she asked.

"Sara…" Greg tried to think how he was going to do this. "Why don't you keep watching TV? I'm going to talk to someone outside. I'll be back in a few."

"OK…" Sara said slowly. "But you'll tell me about it when you're done, won't you?"

"Of course, angel," Greg said. He stepped outside the apartment just in time to see Leon Kuzmin come up the stairs. The larger man seemed hesitant at first, but Greg gave him a reassuring smile.

"I promise I won't bite," he said. "Not this time."

Leon returned the smile and extended his hand. "It is good to meet you," he said as Greg shook it. "I hope this is alright. Vera told me that you were the father of the child."

"Yeah," Greg said. "Take good care of the kid, would you?"

Leon seemed to hesitate. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about, actually."

Greg frowned. "Don't tell me you don't want to take it now…"

"No," Leon said quickly. "I would gladly have raised her as my own, but—"

"Her," Greg interrupted, his heart for some reason leaping into his throat. "It's a her? For sure?"

But Leon Kuzmin looked sad as he shook his head. "It _was_ a her… Mr. Sanders— Greg… About a week ago Vera was trampled in a prison riot. She lost the baby."

Greg frowned and he looked at the man's shoes. They were a light brown, suede by the look of them. He swallowed and his heart fell back into the pit of his stomach. "Oh. When, uh… when exactly did this happen?"

"When you were in the hospital," Leon explained. "Before, I just wanted to assure you that your child would have been in good hands. But the very same day I met you was the day the riot occurred. Vera hadn't wanted me to tell you, but of course you needed to know."

Greg was nodding, slowly. "I guess… I should feel like the weight has been lifted from my shoulders, shouldn't I? I no longer have to feel guilty about not being a part of her life. I don't have to be the father who abandoned his little girl…" He looked up at Leon with dull brown eyes. "I don't suppose you could tell me why I don't feel relieved at all."

The older man put a sympathetic hand on Greg's shoulder. "You lost a child," he said. "And a child is a child, regardless of her mother. And she was _your_ child. My niece. It's OK to grieve. And here I was thinking God had given me a second chance…" Leon closed his eyes and shook his head.

Slowly, Greg nodded. "I think I want to talk to her."

"To Vera?" Leon asked.

Greg bit his lip. "To Lydia," he clarified.

Leon frowned. "I don't understand…"

"I had the funniest dream the other day," Greg was saying ignoring Leon for a moment. "And I don't know if it was the fever or the drugs or a combination of the two but it felt oddly real. Her name was Lydia. The baby. She was dead in the dream, too."

Leon was silent. He looked at his watch. "I should be leaving. It will be Christmas Eve soon and I have to work. Being the only doctor without a family means I work holidays. It was good to meet you, Greg Sanders."

"Likewise," Greg said absently. As Leon Kuzmin began to walk away, Greg did something without thinking. "Hey! Would you, uh, like to join my girlfriend and me for Christmas dinner? I mean, even doctors have to eat, right?"

Leon looked at Greg over his shoulder and smiled warmly at him. "Thank you," he said. "I would like that very much."

Greg smiled back and nodded.

* * *

This time, when Greg went to meet her, it was different. She was kept in the prison hospital to recover from her injuries and apparently was under mental assessment as well. He saw her in the common room at a small piano drumming out Moonlight Sonata. The room was surrounded with guards, but it wasn't as highly secure as her prison. He would have never seen Vera under these circumstances there. He couldn't see her face as it was hidden by her long blonde hair. Her fingers looked bruised and cut up but nonetheless she still played beautifully. Greg felt an eerie sense of déjà vu as he approached her. 

"Greg Sanders," Vera said without stopping the music or looking up. "To what do I owe this honor on Christmas Eve?"

Greg remained silent as he watched her play. The music soothed him on some primal level and he didn't know why. "How did it happen?" he asked at last.

"How did what happen?"

Greg was certain that Vera knew exactly what he was talking about. "What started the riot? How could a woman as vicious as you get trampled."

Vera stopped playing, her fingers coming down on the keys with a jarring sound. She stared down at the black and white plastic before she answered him. "My brother lied to you. I wasn't trampled, a needless casualty. I was the cause."

Greg was silent. Vera explained. "I got a little too curious about what my cell mate looked like on the inside. Mid-dissection she woke up. She's much larger than me and stronger too. Because of that, she has more allies than I do. Needless to say, she didn't like me much after that. And one day in the mess hall, she and her brainless thugs attacked me. Soon enough, everyone had joined in. I brought this upon myself."

"You did," Greg said flatly. "But lucky for you, you won't have to live with it long."

Greg watched her as she lowered her head in a portrait of defeat. "I do not grieve, Greg," she said. "Not for my niece, or my husband, or the countless number of people I've killed. They all served their purpose. They lived, they breathed, they ate, and then one day they crossed my path. And now they're dead. And I felt nothing. That child was inside of me for four and a half months. I haven't felt pain like this since… Well, I've never felt pain like this. I never understood grief."

"She was a girl," Greg said, not very interested in her feelings. "The baby was a girl."

She nodded and finally looked over her shoulder at him, tucking her long hair behind her ears. Her face was a hideous swollen mess of bruises and had it been anyone else, Greg might have felt sorry for them. There was a large gash on her forehead with four white medical strips holding it closed. It looked like she was trying to smile at him, though with her face so swollen it was hard to tell.

"I call her Lydia," she said. "But don't think it's because of you. It's because I am partial to the name."

"Giving her a name will only make it harder," Greg muttered, although he too had made the same mistake already.

Vera laughed morosely and turned back to the piano, staring blankly at it. "Sasha and I had a suicide pact. If anything went wrong, we would each die together. I think it was his plan to die after he conquered Sara Sidle. But it wasn't _my_ plan. I had just gotten what I wanted. I know he expected me to die when he did. But I couldn't kill myself when I had a life depending on me. Now I have nothing. And I'm lost. There was always something for me. There was always beauty in the contorted faces of my victims. The love poems Sasha would write me. The euphoria we would experience together. The sex, the schemes, the murders, the torture. I never felt more alive than when I bled a man dry. The stench of death was like a fountain of youth for me. I was immortal. And now, I have a very literal deadline. It's like someone stamped an expiration date across my forehead. 'Best if used before…' And I am. Used. I'm all used up now, Greg, and the only thing I have to look forward to now is walking down that long hallway where I can finally stop thinking."

Greg stared at the back of her head for a long time. "I'm not going to pretend that I don't look forward to that day too," he whispered. "But I won't lie to myself and say that… It's kind of reassuring, to see this side of you."

Vera scoffed, her head bobbing up with the force of her contempt. "And why is that, exactly?"

Greg let out a low whistle and folded his arms before shrugging. His eyes never left Vera's battered form. "Because it reminds me that you're not all monster. There's still some sliver of human in you. And that… that's good to know."

"It's easier to hate someone when you think they're pure evil," Vera commented slowly.

"I don't think I hate you anymore," Greg said, as if just coming to the realization himself. "And I don't feel sorry for you either. You exist. And soon, you won't anymore. No. I don't hate you, Vera. I just don't care. Not at all. Not even a little bit. Because when I walk out of here today, I am never going to think about you again. And in eight months or so when I read about your execution in the headlines, it will be like I'm reading about any other criminal. I'll think, 'Good riddance,' and go on with my day. Because I have a life to lead. And… you have nothing to do with it."

Vera turned her whole torso around on the piano bench, her legs following. Greg saw the handcuffs that bound them together and only then remembered he was in a prison hospital and there were guards at the door and in the room, watching them and listening to them, and if Vera laid a finger on him, their guns would be drawn and she would be reprimanded. She looked at him with dead blue eyes and Greg knew then that it didn't matter when her execution date was set because Vera's life was lost with that of her unborn child's. Even a psychopathic murderess could be a mother, it seemed, in every sense of the word.

She said only one simple word, and it was hard to know what she meant by it, but Greg found he wasn't inclined to dwell too much on the mystery. "OK."

It wasn't clear what she was agreeing to, or acknowledging, or even if she'd heard a word Greg had said at all. But "OK" was the last word Vera Volkova ever said to Greg Sanders, and would be the last word she would ever say to anyone.

After Greg left that Christmas Eve, Vera returned to her room escorted by her guards, fashioned a noose out of her bed sheets and hung herself from the ceiling. She left behind a note that no one could make sense of. Its intended reader never had a chance to see it.

_Love lost the war within me years ago  
You were my magnum opus  
Daddy dearest  
In phoenix flames, he burns inside my veins  
All I ever wanted was to feel alive… _

_ RIP  
_

* * *

Greg returned home that night to find Sara and Leon in his kitchen, Leon teaching Sara how to prepare a proper dinner. The ham was charred and the popovers were hard as rocks, but the three of them simply laughed. 

They reveled in the mirth of the season and drank into the early hours of the morning before Leon finally went home and Greg had Sara all to himself. They sat snugly on the couch together, Sara resting her head on Greg's chest as they watched _It's A Wonderful Life_ until five o'clock in the morning. By the time the movie ended, Sara and Greg had missed George Bailey's realization that he did, indeed, have a wonderful life because both of them had fallen fast asleep, and spent most of Christmas Day just lying peacefully together.

They both knew instinctively that it was going to be a very happy New Year indeed.

**THE VERY END**


	10. Special Features

* * *

**_BONUS MATERIAL_**

Similar to _Finding Mr. Hyde_, here's a little "special features" bonus for you.

Alternate Suicide Notes  
Vera's suicide note always had a very strict structure, but the five line poem went through several revisions. Here is the original and the one I almost ended up using.

**Original Version**  
_Love was never my problem  
You gave me the only thing I thought I didn't need  
Did you really know me all along?  
In phoenix flames, he burns inside my veins  
All I ever wanted was to feel alive…_

**Version Two**_  
Lingering whispers of you hang off my lips  
You'll never feel her heartbeat like I do  
Don'__t grieve for me; not that I expect you to  
In an ethereal fire, I soar on phoenix wings  
Always alive on the currents between your lips and hers_

Deleted Subplot: Sara  
I followed Sara for a while until I decided it was too much and took out her subplot, which she pretty much summarizes anyway in chapter eight. Her discovery of the website was originally part of that subplot, and she was going to wake up the next morning after Nick had removed it and realize that she could finally move on. But since Greg had the drugs and the baby to deal with, Sara's subplot was unneccessary and reduced to just the scene with Nick and the website and the summary she gives Greg. Don't worry, you didn't miss much, it wasn't that interesting anyway.

Unused Character: Warrick  
I really am sorry that Warrick didn't play a bigger role. I didn't mean to sell him short. I like to include all the characters in a story, or at least try. But to be honest, he didn't fit anywhere in this story, so I didn't want to try to stick it in and make it awkward.

Sneak Preview: Salam  


**Summary:** While investigating the brutal murder of a Muslim woman, Nick and Greg find themselves caught in a hostage situation and Sara is enlisted as a negotiator. Misunderstandings lead to further deaths. Dealing with racism, hate and ignorance, the team has to make sure everyone comes out of this alive. Team friendship.

**Excerpt:**

_Greg felt someone pressing up against his shoulder and looked down to see the redheaded teenage boy who was trying to hide behind him. Greg gave him a reassuring smile and tried to give the kid a little courage, although courage was scarce to be found in any of them, including Greg._

_"It'll be OK." He repeated the mantra of denial he had whispered to Nick an hour earlier, and though there was no way he could know if things would be OK or not, the redhead seemed to smile up at him, encouraged by these simple, empty words. Greg saw the freckles standing out on his pale cheeks and felt a strange affection for the kid. He ruffled his hair. He had always wanted to be a big brother to someone. At the lab, everyone treated him like the youngest in a big family. It felt nice being depended on. Looked up to. Even by a stranger._

_"Three… Two… One."_

_Greg's hope was shattered with that single sound. It didn't sound like a gunshot to him, or even a firework this time. It sounded like a pop, as if from a toy gun or someone popping open a champagne bottle. He had forgotten completely about the one hour rule. He knew he shouldn't have been a hero. He knew he shouldn't have shoved himself to the front of the line. He knew he shouldn't have thought of himself as a big brother. Who could he ever protect, someone as powerless as him? Someone who could be destroyed with one gunshot that didn't even sound like a gunshot__…_

"Salam" is a statement on the animosity bred by the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. It's a lesson on tolerance and understanding and deals with heavy isuses. It will be rated 'M' and posted soon. It is NOT a statement for or against any particular side of the conflict itself, though multiple opinions are expressed via different characters. It is a commentary on violence and hatred, and emphasizes the need to remember there are two sides to every story, each with valid points to them. Sorry for the shameless plug, but... yeah.

Credits:

Thank you, sincerely, to all of you reviewers, but especially those who have read all three of these stories from beginning to end (From Slither to Phoenix). I'm afraid if I list you I'll forget someone, but if I do just mention it and I'll edit you in so... Kegel, PisceanPal23, necira, Kristafied, indusgirl1313, ilovekc... If I forgot you, I didn't mean it. This trilogy got a little tedious, and I know the end seemed a little rushed, but I think I wrapped things up nicely, and thanks for all your words of encouragement. Hooray!


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